


Retaliation x Retribution

by goodnightfern



Series: The Extended MCU [2]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Babies, Black Comedy, Cannibalism, Communal Childrearing, Conflict Resolution, Cultural Differences, Diplomacy, Entheogens, Freaky Nen Bullshit, Gen, General Chrollo-POV Content Warnings, How to Morally Justify Your Hate Crime for Dummies, Meteor City's Collectivist Culture and Suicide Bomber Cult, Negotiating with Terrorists, Nen Contracts, Oppression Olympics, Original Religious Lore, Religious Fanaticism, Soap Opera, What the Kurtas Took, Xenophobia, it's luciLFER with a L get it RIGHT, oito + chrollo sibling theory thanks reddit, the Yaois Begin in chapter eight have fun with that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:40:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23930062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightfern/pseuds/goodnightfern
Summary: Meteor City honors its martyrs, be they those who give themselves utterly to the meteor or those who forsake individuality in service of the collective. Though Chrollo Lucilfer is wise in the ways of his people, he has much to learn about sacrifice.Or: Chrollo Lucilfer goes on yet another spiritual journey, discovers his long-lost family, overcomes his hatred, and finds the answers were inside him all along.
Relationships: Kuroro Lucifer | Chrollo Lucifer/Kurapika, Kuroro Lucifer | Chrollo Lucifer/Pakunoda, Kuroro Lucifer | Chrollo Lucifer/Tserriednich Hui Guo Rou, Oito Hui Guo Rou/Kurapika
Series: The Extended MCU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2126208
Comments: 35
Kudos: 47





	1. PROLOGUE | στην πόλη

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote a shitload of mc worldbuilding in my [previous chrofic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20137195/chapters/47706607), but now i'm throwing my hat in the oito-chrollo-sibling theory ring. but first *even more meteor city worldbuilding*
> 
> 1\. sepolian: means "outside the city"  
> 2\. everyone in MC uses nen from early childhood as a basic survival tool, the practice of combination nen weakens individual ability (among other things) yet has its own benefits  
> 3\. yeah they're a secretive society of suicide bombers living in the Universal Garbage Dump & are as weird as you might expect

****

**The Third Tale of the Histories of Meteor City (a children's story)**

_A long, long time ago, after the first bombs fell..._

After the prisoners crawled from the rubble they struggled to stand in the light. The fleeing overseers left no stores for them; no trucks crossed the desert yet. All their water was poisoned. Even the insects had fled. As their vessels withered in starvation, they forgot the lessons of bondage.

Desperation drew destructive. One prisoner hoarded the beetles he caught, another struck their sister for a sip of water. What one had, another had not. I want this, one might cry. I need that, the other might say. _My survival over yours_. 

QUESTION: How could they commit the sins of the overseers?

QUESTION: How could they forget the lessons of bondage?

So recently free of the darkness they were blind to the light of their souls. Trapped in their dying vessels they forgot the power of the collective. How easily are the promises made in the shadows forgotten! 

And yet: there was one prisoner, stronger than the others. With their might they once lifted the rubble from their brethren's shoulders. The others looked to them as a leader, of sorts - but they did not know yet the burden it is to lead.

They sat in the desert and meditated on the very same questions you ask. In the long night they saw the light of their soul fading. The meteor's shadow still hung over them all. And in the morning they realized: a sacrifice must be made.

They took a sharp piece of shale and severed their right hand. They divided their fingers by the knuckle, split their palm along the tendons. They distributed their flesh to their fellow prisoners, and so they survived another day of starvation. When they grew thirsty, they drank their blood. When starvation threatened again another severed their foot; through the sacrifice of their leader they realized their sin.

RESPONSE: Such is the burden of those who would lead.

As we repair our vessels with the shard of another, so they repaired each other. As our clay absorbs our water, so their vessels absorbed their shards and became one again. To this very day when we consume the flesh of our elders we remember their sacrifices. And so we remember. And so we survive.

You are yet children, but you have already received the benefits of sacrifice. As you grow beneath the meteor's shadow and join hands with your brethren, you must never forget. You must be willing. You must be ready. 

RESPONSE: To make the sacrifice for the survival of all. 

Public debates in Meteor City are something of a festival: a chance to rest from labor, enjoy a good show, and learn the deeper mysteries of the ever-waiting meteor. Any wellspace may become an impromptu forum; here in the eastern landfills piles of trash have been arranged as auditorium. Residents perch on junked vehicles and squat on stained boxes, passing roasted maggots and clay pellets between each other. A few glassy-masked elders sit in the cleared dust, collective aura sheening like mist as they record the event to memory. Tomorrow it will be the gossip of the wellspaces.

Speaking today are the Spider, as represented by Chrollo Lucilfer, and the five hundred would-be martyrs: as represented by Dyenea, Cleaved Wing, and a nameless healer identified by a severe cleft-palate. Though today’s weather calls for light masking, the deformation of his nose is apparent through his gauzy wrappings. Supervising the debate is yet another elder, distinguished by the turquoise gleam of their cicada mask.

Traditional debates call for traditional style. Chrollo has forgone his killing coat for robes of crow feathers and knotted black plastic bags. They serve as reminder of his spiritual authority and will leave rashes on his skin. In lieu of a soapbox, he sprawls on a stack of briefcases overflowing with jenny. 

“Beneath the scabs, pestilence boils,” Cleft Palate intones. Despite obvious speech difficulties, his voice carries on the strength of his soul: the golden aura of the third emanation and a natural emitter. Chrollo wonders why the physician never tried to heal himself, but mentally admonishes the thought before it can take root. “Scars serve as permanent reminders on flesh.”

“Yet scars may fade as the cracked vessel mends. With time comes healing -"

"As well as wisdom."

Does he insult Chrollo's youth, or merely finish the line? Trading proverbs is a popular form of rhetoric; Chrollo's first mistake was mentioning the speed at which dry earth soaks up blood. “Let us speak no more of old wounds," he says with a dismissive twist of the wrist. “I would speak the burden of sacrifice."

“Sacrifice is glory, not burden,” Cleaved Wing interjects. “Our siblings in the shadows ease the yoke of the path. Diminishing the importance of the event diminishes the choice of the five hundred.” Though she wears full masking she refuses to emote, keeping her hands tucked in her robes.

"Sacrifice is a deeply personal decision, reflective of each individual’s spiritual path and mortal bonds. None of the five hundred were alive when the red-eyed warriors committed their offense. Their crimes against us were nearly forgotten.”

“Our bond was severed many years ago, yes. But never forgotten.” A tap on his forehead signifies Cleft-Palate's wisdom. On the cusp of ascension, Cleft-Palate grows arrogant. 

“The Spider forgets that the soul of Meteor City is eternal.” Both hands to the sky, Dyenea embraces the sun. “All wells spring from one source, and the water of the five hundred boils as surely as it did one hundred and fifty years ago.”

“I did not forget,” Chrollo says - too quick, too defensive. “But water holds no form but its vessel, and a shattered cup holds no water. Three generations have passed since. Why break so many vessels for an act of retribution?”

Dyenea's palms unfold in a question. “You call your actions retribution? One would think you thought it retaliation, from the violence employed.”

Retaliation is immediate, borne of rage. In past cases martyrs have destroyed entire apartment complexes that housed a single target, should any of their neighbors have offered their enemy a smile. Retribution is less immediate, for smaller and past offenses, and demands more precise calculation of sacrifices. While usually calling for less, depending on the nature of the offense and the judgement of collective harm, it can often result in what Chrollo is facing now: five hundred for a job that barely took eight. Yesterday he argued that the neighboring Lusko villages were likewise manipulated into offering the Kurta’s sanctuary - a _grave_ insult to the five hundred.

“I also find it curious that you try to downplay the importance of your own actions,” Cleft-Palate continues. “Surely this affair with the red-eyed warriors meant a great deal to you, Chrollo.”

"You address _this_ as individual?" Chrollo merely holds out his hands and displays his soul. The black aura of a natural specialist, capable of absorbing any soul across the spectrum. If his robes did not serve as reminder enough, let this do the trick. "The soulcatcher speaks as the avatar of the collective.”

"Surrounded by your spoils, you cite your holy rank?" Dyenea's fingers curl like hooks to yank some truth from him. "How many millions did you make off your _retribution?_ "

Two hundred million, just in the briefcases he sits on. So much jenny could translate to hundreds of bushels of fresh vegetables, new gas masks for every resident, machines to sort the landfills, enough medicine to let the healers take a vacation. Of course, this is blasphemy to contemplate. Ten years ago in a forum much like this one Chrollo himself declared the worthlessness of the mafia’s aid. Even at eleven he was aware enough to see the inequity: that powdered milk and ibuprofen were a laughable exchange for the souls they stole from the holy collective. 

Smiling, Chrollo gestures to the present legs of the Spider.

Feitan and Phinks are with the newest leg - a fence in Pakodea. Franklin is mining in another district, Uvo and Nobu are trapped in Kakinese customs, and Machi is stuck with the aftermath of a devastating compost-slide in the southwest district. Only Pakunoda and Shalnark are present and prepared with another hundred million and a can of gasoline.

If Dyenea wants he can count it all up for her, one rubber-band stack of a hundred thousand at a time. He can build a mountain of his spoils while the forum looks on: people like a spectacle as much as proverbs, after all. And when he has built his tower of sepolian spoils, he can stand back as Shalnark pours on the gasoline and Pakunoda lights the match.

Let the earth be his altar and the money his incense. Greasy palms and dry linen cut through the atmospheric _eau de poubelle_ of Meteor City. Chrollo has crushed temples and desecrated gods, and now he offers up this burnt sacrifice to the meteor.

Outsiders _worship_ money, base their entire society upon it. Let no one accuse Chrollo of bowing to false gods.

While it burns he reminds them of his history. How even when he declared open war on the mafia he never summoned his people to battle. Never placed their children in danger, never exposed them to sepolian invaders with guns. Retaliation and retribution are sacred, but the Spider keeps its battles in the outside world and likewise walk with its stains. They are no wandering witnesses, but warriors. 

This, too, was an act of war. 

"You all remember what they did to us," Chrollo tells them, dragging hands down his face in pantomime of misery. "Stole our young for prostitutes, roped our strong into fighting pits, promised our vulnerable youth lives of excitement that ended in prison sentences. Dragged our deformed and disabled away to chop them up and sell them as curiosities. I have walked through the mansions of the flesh collectors, witnessed the bodies of our fellow residents preserved like trophies. Yet these red-eyed warriors, our ancient enemies, were considered more valuable than any of our precious lost."

The Kurtas were healthy, fat and indolent in their forest. Yet their lives - no, only a mere _eyeball_ \- were worth triple the head of someone like Cleft Palate. "Beloved ones, my blood boiled to contemplate it."

Dyenea moans before the fire and repeats his pantomime, fingers still curved into hooks. Cleft-Palate looks moody, Cleaved Wing still refuses to show her hands.

“We cast out their eyes like the sparks of the meteor," Chrollo continues. "These flesh collectors now devour each other in their reckless greed for the eyes. Young scheme against their elders, families betray one another. Yet unlike the sparks of the meteor, the Scarlet Eyes will never flicker or fade. As long as our enemies continue their foul trade, the eyes will continue to sow discord among our enemies.”

There is more Chrollo could say about the slaughter of the Kurtas. Not that his simple siblings would understand. Not that he quite understands it himself yet. The forum is quiet as the money burns, the smoke irritates his eyes.

As it reduces to ash Cleaved Wing unveils her hands. Cradles the left in the right, holds it to her heart in an exhibition of sorrow.

“I would speak of something else,” she says. “So far, we have not addressed it in the debates. May I address you as individual, Chrollo?”

“You may.”

“I remember when you came to Meteor City. Sealed in a crate and already named, wrapped with tenderness in a shroud as black as your soul.” All according to the first story Chrollo learned. He came as a gift with loving intent. And as he grew, he demonstrated that love. Lived as a promise of the left hand, a symbol of a future of diplomacy. So he was anointed soulcatcher.

"And?" 

"I remember when you used to sit in our wellspaces, teaching your fellow children our ways. I remember your Spiders when they were small, our struggling souls you took under your wing. All of us knew you for your tenderness, your wisdom, your diligence. But I cannot recognize the man you have become.”

“…What do you mean?”

“You’ve returned to us a butcher. Of infants, even.”

Correct. Two weeks ago Chrollo stuck a blade up a child’s rectum to turn its mother’s eyes molten. Yesterday he built a cart for a ten-year-old resident with amelia. He wonders which of the reports Cleaved Wing may have read, if Cleaved Wing is even literate. Every photo he saw was censored.

“Do you dare compare the future of Meteor City to the offspring of outsiders?” He gestures questioningly, carefully casual.

“Most of us were born in the outside world.”

“And we are reborn in the meteor’s shadow. Elder, am I correct to say this veers towards blasphemy?”

The elder hums, dismissing him. “Do you accuse him of sin?”

“I only question his cruelty.”

“ _Cruelty_?” Now he can let incredulity color his voice. “And would you call our treatment of the shunned likewise cruel? Would you deny the cruelty of outsiders?”

“Cleaved Wing,” the elder interrupts. “Do you speak for the five hundred?”

“No. But I am not alone among them.”

“Cleaved Wing has committed their own sins,” Chrollo insists. “I remember. Sins of exclusive intimacy and rebellion, even leading to _creation_ –“

“A sin of the left hand. Cleaved Wing’s child was delivered to another segment while their milk provided holy sustenance. Their fellow sinner is among the wandering witnesses. This is irrelevant, Chrollo.”

Open hands fall back in acceptance of his misstep. “I only bring up their stains to question their legitimacy to judge. I know I have sinned, and I will make my confession. But only this soul and the elders may judge me.”

Cleaved Wing folds her hands back inside her robes. "Then confess to the forum. This one would not dare to judge the soulcatcher, of course." 

The elder fails to catch her sarcasm, but Chrollo was prepared for accusations as such. He knows exactly how he sinned: he has had his retribution, delivered his message, yet returns home with vessel intact.

What meaning is revenge without sacrifice? To stand here alive must be insult to the five hundred. Martyrs spend nights in meditation, go through special ceremonies before departure. Chrollo acted without the consultation of the elders, performed no ceremonies, and the meditations of the Spider (three days and two nights spent drinking in the Lusko capital) were not public knowledge.

His sacrifice will be made right here, right now. Should the five hundred accept, he will share his blood with them. Cleaved Wing stiffens; Dyenea cries something about the waters of his soul; Cleft Palate gives a tight nod. 

The elder confirms the sacrifice and the forum springs to life. Cups trade hands, a pair of healers dislodge themselves while the forum calculates. Five drops - no, ten drops apiece for each of the five hundred. Chrollo raises it to twenty.

Two and a half pints. He’ll live.

The healers take a wrist apiece, holding one over a cracked mug bound with pitch and the other over a crumpled waterbottle. No need to open a wound, they simply massage his skin and invite the blood to displace itself. Emission and manipulation, Chrollo knows, but sepolian terms for nen are not used in Meteor City. The soul that reaches, the soul that guides, and his own that accepts and embraces all in its perpetual shadow.

The last thing he hears before passing out is Pakunoda calling his name –

– and the first thing he feels is Machi’s hand on his fading pulse.

Chrollo opens his eyes to the eight stars of Meteor City, red through the haze. Night has settled, the forum has descended into the wellspace. Machi’s lips stretch in a line that cracks when she says, “Boss, what did you do?”

He is in Pakunoda’s lap, wrapped in his killing coat but still shivering. Machi tilts a cup of broth thickened with maggot meal to his lips, swears when half of it dribbles down his chin. A day spent in surgery has left her bedside manner lacking, not that she excelled in that to begin with.

“You need a transfusion,” Machi snaps. “There’s bound to be a few who can contribute. You don’t get to say –“

“ _No._ ” As long as he is in Pakunoda’s arms, she can speak for him. “He doesn’t want it.”

Chrollo manages a nod, sinks back into her embrace. Their particular emanations and abilities are similar enough: while Chrollo catches wayward shards, Pakunoda sifts through the soul with her third eye open. When she uses her ability on him he feels something soft and pale as his feathers. It is her soul that enables him to prop himself up and reach proper awareness.

Machi could say quite a bit about the unhealthy practice of soulsharing, but not in the wellspace.

“The elders want to see you,” Paku tells him, stroking his hair.

“He’s not running –!“

“I’ll carry him.”

They approach the plastic catacombs from the southeast, Pakunoda and Machi leaping light-footed through the landfills. In the shadow of the mesa at the edge of the city, they slow to a walk. The flies are already alight in their bottles. Pakunoda drops him off at a crevice between the bales; she cannot follow him into this holy place.

Chrollo braces himself against the walls of compressed plastic, follows the sound of a beating heart. He knows these catacombs better than most his age, has spent many a night inhaling VOC fumes in meditation. He finds the elders cloistered in a central chamber, where the piles of single-use plastics give way to the sky.

They form a circle around him, flylights casting sparks on their insectoid masks. One approaches, gestures for him to sit.

“Too long since you sat in the catacombs with us, child,” the elder drones. Another is speaking through their throat. Such is the power of the collective: the miasma that soaks through his robes and skin. Hands encrusted with spiders reach for his mask; Chrollo swallows a gasp.

“I am here in the shadow with you,” he recites.

“Unmask this one, child.” They sound smiling, but do not open their hands.

Custom mandates that elders are only unmasked after death. The face of the living puppets of the collective may only be witnessed upon one’s own ascension. Chrollo does as he is told, reaching into the cavern of robes to find a worn cloth tie.

“Look, child.”

A triangular maw splits open the face of a corpse. The forehead is wrinkled, dry and mottled. No lips hide the teeth, only a permanent grin mars the cheeks. While this one kept its eyes, the eyelids have been removed; the orbs are swollen and red and ooze crusty mucus. This one has already begun the process of self-dehydration.

Should Chrollo be so lucky as to reach his own ascension, the tattoo on his forehead will be first to go. He will carve his skin to his skull and feel it to the Spider.

“You have made your own sacrifices, haven’t you?”

Has he? Other voices speak, sentences blending into each other. His meteor has landed. His star has turned into shadow. The meteor has landed in his heart –

Some say being examined by the elders is painful, but Feitan has skinned and burned Chrollo before at his own behest. To him it is like floating in a warm saline sea, a bobbing empty bottle slowly filling up until sinks. 

Something churns in the pit of the ocean. A subterranean current shoves him back up and out, naked and fainting on the beach, and Chrollo coughs up phlegm in the skeleton arms of the elder. 

“We cannot hold you in our well," they tell him. "This soul will never ascend."

Chrollo is still young. In twenty-odd years he will be of age to become an elder. Someday he will retire the Spider and guide the younger generations. Though his path is different from most, and the meteor may land on him sooner as result, he has been promised to lead his people ever since he was anointed. He remains in the shadow with them.

“And we with you. We do not shun you, but you walk a path none of us may follow. How can we guide paths we have not walked? How could a soul like yours join into our midst?”

“I remain in the shadow with you,” he repeats numbly as the elder wipes his tears. “I have always been here.”

“You are still our sacred son, child.” Bone-slick teeth kiss his cheeks. “But you take fate in your own hands, redirect it to your will. Your heart still fights the meteor, even as you call it upon yourself.”

The rest of the elders surround them, lay their hands on his shoulders, caress his back. The one holding him sways, rocking him in their midst. A moan rises in their throats, the formless cry of the soul. Chrollo’s sobs turn strangled, choke off. 

“What must I do?” he asks.

There is nothing to be done. He still must find resolution with Cleaved Wing. For the next fortnight he will work at their side. Join hands until their heart opens to him again. They are not the only resident who fears him now. 

By the time they release Chrollo the moon is high. He stumbles out from the catacombs and into Pakunoda’s arms, and he does not know what possesses him to grab her and press their lips together in a sudden and shocking sin. 

“I’m sorry.”

She does not back away, but holds him closer. “You look terrified, boss.”

“I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

“Let go of me.”

She obeys. Chrollo composes himself. Breakdowns may happen in front of the elders, but not to a woman who has pledged him loyalty beyond the bounds of their city. They are not children anymore.

But when they were, she used to brush his hair back from his forehead to help him sleep. Developed her ability on him when he felt alone. Machi has long left, it’s only the two of them. So he sits down with his back against a plastic bale and gestures for her to sit at his side.

“I’ve been rejected by the elders.”

“Shunned?” She reaches; he shakes his head. The elder’s face is too fresh in his memory.

“Never shunned. But I won’t be able to join them when I come of age. I’m… feeling lost.” He glances at her profile, the elegant beak of her nose, and draws his coat tighter. “A lack of connection. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

In respect for tradition she wears soft linen robes that cling to her form. Hazy moonlight turns her hair silver. The attraction he’s resisted since puberty still jerks his gut. He doesn’t want her to forgive him, to fold her lips closed and look at her hands, but she does. 

“Well,” she says after an awkward beat, “this is good, right? You never wanted to be an elder.”

“...Sometimes we don’t know what we want until it's taken from us?”

“Don’t go on a rampage.”

“Paku -” 

“I’m just teasing,” she chuckles, and holds back from nudging him. “Wanna head back?”

He could kiss her again for providing levity. He knocks into her shoulder, casually. Friendly. “Wouldn’t mind sleeping out here.”

In the morning the elder he unmasked is dead. The surviving elders carry them to the top of the catacombs, transmit any remaining fluids into the wells. Grind the remaining husk into meal.

Chrollo is not invited to their ceremonies. He works with Cleaved Wing, laboring to find fresh souls among the garbage. He keeps his head down and his heart open.


	2. DIG TWO GRAVES

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kind of just posting bits as i write them *shrug* i really hate going to college and wasting writing energy on.... gasp..... _assignments_
> 
> anyways i was very tired from covid just, fucking stuff up, and i know it shows here, i threw away a morena subplot lmao. just get qworfs ass to the first tier as quickly as possible, eh?

Years of agonizing and months of planning. The sacred hands of the Sun and Moon and the devoted feet of the Spider. The entire week it took to slaughter a path up the Babelian tower of bloodsports and its final spectacular destruction. To think it all could end like this: Chrollo on his knees in a non-descript playground, staring at a mockery of corpses.

He gets the joke in Hisoka's grotesque display, of course, but once again Hisoka demonstrates his idiocy. Shalnark and Kortopi are long gone, souls burning in the orbit of the ever-hovering meteor only to fall into ash back within the collective. Inanimate objects these corpses may be, though, the vessels of Meteor City may only meet two ends: either completely obliterated in martyrdom or buried in the compost fields, and so he goes to work. Kortopi's old shards are difficult to find, scattered through foliage and underbrush. He collects every piece and delivers them to a dumpster, then climbs in after them.

An unspoken rule of the outside world: everything tossed in the garbage is property of Meteor City.

Once inside, surrounded by the scent of home, he holds their heads in his arms and weeps. His Spider texts him and calls him, unleashing both comfort and rage. A pair of wandering witnesses sense his grief and come to comfort him. By the time the dump trucks and garbage barges carry him home the residents have already felt the echoes of his pain. The dried well of his soul expands into a vast and hollow pit that echoes with their moans. Phinks, Feitan, and his newest leg are waiting at the chapel in the remains of the old concentration camp with solemn faces. 

Phinks flinches when he sees the heads in Chrollo's arms. Kalluto swallows, eyes steady. It is good to see the Zoldyck child in Meteor City; Chrollo has only spoken to him over the phone before. Meeting him in person with a murderous pedophile on his trail seemed too risky before. 

" _Boss,_ " Kalluto murmurs, and lets go of Feitan's cloak.

Chrollo nods. "I'm sorry we couldn't meet under better circumstances."

Strange that the heads upset a former assassin, or maybe it's the way Chrollo cradles them. The child is still learning the customs of both the Spider and Meteor City. He dangles one by the hair. "This was Kortopi's, once. Did you ever meet him? He wasn't so much older than you." 

Kalluto shakes his head. "Once. He didn't talk much."

"Shy like you," Feitan adds.

"At first, I was the only one he could speak to," Chrollo says fondly. "And it took _months_ to get him to open up. Help me burn these, will you? Phinks, Feitan. Deliver the bodies to the compost pits."

Due to ancient superstitions regarding the curse of tremors, heads are never consumed or tilled. Only blackened skulls may be ground with ash.

They burn them in the shadow of junked cars and festering food waste. Residents offer bouquets of plastic flowers and thorn-thistles, in lieu of proper ceremony. Phinks grits his teeth and stares at his feet the whole time, and even Feitan, who has never shown anything but disdain for the religious customs of his adopted homeland, tosses a thorny thistle onto the pyre. Chrollo holds Kalluto's hand, has him repeat an old prayer.

The words aren't quite right, though. No meteor killed them. The retaliation will be swift and immediate and take everything every leg has. He explains to Kalluto as such, and does not bother to contain his bloodlust when he speaks of Hisoka. 

Kalluto nods, palm gritty with dust. "I'm ready."

"Oh? Does a leg move independent?"

" _We're_ ready," he corrects. "The Spider will be."

A fast learner. Chrollo takes him along for the rest of his duties. The boy finds Meteor City strange as most newcomers do, but this is his mother's homeland. Chrollo can never turn down a willing soul, and there is much to teach him.

In the years since he slaughtered the Kurtas and became known as _forsaken_ , Chrollo has remained a symbol of Meteor City's faith. More attuned towards destruction than they might have hoped, but so it went and so it goes. The Sun and Moon carry certain responsibilities with it and before he embarks on his journey of revenge he has work to do. 

Twenty-five martyrs in the eastern segment await in the shadows of a long-depowered recycling plant. A wandering witness was badly beaten by punks in the streets of Santo Francis. Chrollo performs the ceremonies and sends them on their way with a kiss and fistful of jenny for the truck drivers.

Sixty martyrs wait in the central compost pits, processing the corpses sent home from the sick prisons the Hunter Association uses as fodder for their exam. They will destroy Trick Tower for once and for all; Chrollo performs their ceremonies likewise.

Fifty-seven are assembled for Shalnark and Kortopi.

This is Chrollo's battle, not theirs. He raised them both by his own hand - the young genius and the child too shy to even show his face. There is only one person to blame for their demise. If some seek passage on the Black Whale, they are welcome, but Hisoka betrayed the Spider first and foremost. Their sacrifice is unnecessary. As much as Chrollo wishes to deny them, though, the soulcatcher and the bearer of the Sun and Moon _must_ do their duty. If he spends two weeks embroiled in debates when he could be killing Hisoka again, may the meteor take him this instant.

So much hand-joining and meditation leave his soul depleted and his vessel sickly. The healers replenish him, and at night Cleaved Wing offers him water and a bowl of cabbage and coffee grounds, boiled in the bodily fluids of the elders. Such nourishment is worthy of a martyr. When he gives her his blessing, she pulls his hands to her chest and gives him her own: a kiss on both eyelids and in between where his soul sleeps.

If her soul seems reluctant to embrace his, he doesn't question it. 

"Who is your enemy this time?" she asks. "You seem a martyr yourself right now."

"Same as it was."

Cleaved Wing turns over his palms in her hands. "After all that -"

"I know." Chrollo hasn't bothered to read the reports of Heaven's Arena. Whether human or puppet, he's surpassed some personal record. 

"And yet you tried to deny our sacrifices again," she says, slowly. "How many will you kill this time, Chrollo?"

"As many as it takes." 

She lets go of his hands abruptly. As if Chrollo doesn't know exactly what she's getting at. To reject the willing martyrs while using outsiders as sacrifice must be sacrilege. 

Chrollo isn't trying to start another reformation; in fact, he understands the choice of martyrdom on an intimate level. If Pakunoda had respect for that she might still live, but in this very thought he denies her own autonomy. Perhaps he simply doesn't want to see his people die. Perhaps he is unworthy to carry the Sun and Moon. 

"Did you come here to say goodbye?" Cleaved Wing asks.

Of course not. No matter what, the Spider will prevail. Their enemies will be destroyed, the loot will be theirs, and the Spider will return home to great ceremony and festival. Just as they always have. He casts his hopes and prayers to the eight stars that gleam through the haze, Kalluto's hesitant hands beneath his own.

> Before you embark on a journey of revenge, first dig a grave for our fallen. Second, commune with the elders of your segment. Speak to those whom you work alongside, and deliver your final farewells. Eight nights and eight days will you will meditate with only the elders as witness. On the ninth you will share souls with your fellow martyrs, dissolving into the shadow of your collective. After the final ceremony you will light a fire in the landfills and set your soul aflame. All night must it burn. By dawn you will be purified.

**\- Standard procedure for Meteor City bombers**

The fifth tier of the Black Whale is a fascinating spectacle of human misery. Chrollo knows all he needs to know about the cruelty of Kakin's ruling dynasty; the gassed corpses of their political dissidents and ethnic minorities have often graced the landfills of Meteor City, and wandering witnesses have been killed trying to smuggle their found souls across the borders. Some of them are even on the ship, still trying to preach to the downtrodden that this new continent holds no promises for them. 

Chrollo wonders if the new continent will continue to ship their garbage all the way home, or if they'll create their own wasteland. Not that he has the time for much pondering here.

Grief leaves him exhausted, rage propels him into stupidity. He spends nights awake wishing his _en_ could cover the entire ship, curled watchfully over Bono and Shizuku. Illumi's words about his relationship with Hisoka are disturbing, but he has no choice but to trust Illumi's desire to protect Kalluto and Kikyou Zoldyck's own assurances. Machi and Franklin's independent approaches are likewise worrisome. 

On the other hand, while he's glad Phinks and Feitan are looking out for Nobunaga, they're entering dangerous territory acting with the mafia. In his depression Chrollo doesn't have the patience for diplomacy, though. Everyone can find their own way to move freely about the ship: as for Chrollo, he can socialize with maintenance workers and crew members. Find plans and emergency escape routes. Air must be circulated, water must be pumped, and once he can sneak into a boiler-room where he can easily teleport Bono (holding a wrench) to the other side of a grate or vent, traveling between tiers is simple. 

Even when the Hunters are alerted to their presence, they only detain him briefly. Mizaistom Nana is careful and has clearly been briefed on how to deal with Chrollo's kind - he politely interrupts Chrollo while he rifles through a Strawbucks garbage bin and offers to buy him a coffee. Chrollo is honest about his purposes on board but does not trust a representative of the Association that _licensed_ a known serial killer and pedophile to assist him in searching beyond the bulkhead. Hisoka is one of theirs, after all.

It almost makes sense for him to be hiding in luxury on the upper tiers, though. Letting the Spider run ragged while he sips champagne and rubs elbows with celebrities might be Hisoka's style. On the other hand, attempting to predict the unpredictable is a fool's mission. He hadn't quite considered breaking through the bulkhead yet, but Mizai's concern is inspiring. The Association might very well be protecting him. If that is the case, he may as well leave the lower tiers to his legs. 

Mizai then asks him other, more baffling, questions. Meteor City's martyrs are not and have never been _terrorists_.

“Look," Mizai says, lowering his voice to something he may consider familiar. "The last time one of your people was injured, there were over a hundred and twenty bombings. The last time a member of the Phantom Troupe died, the casualties were in the _thousands_. We can search the upper tiers for your man and deliver him straight into your custody, no questions asked -"

"And in return you expect me to betray my people."

"Mr. Lucilfer, we are responsible for the safety of everyone on this ship, including that of yourself and your people. This isn't a witchhunt. But if anyone is carrying explosives, for their own safety -"

"Just how many Hunters are running rampant on this ship?" _Witchhunt?_ "Do you know the abilities and intentions of every one? Unlike your kind, we have _discipline._ Not to mention you must know by now that I myself have the potential to sink this entire ship should I choose, taking every last passenger down with me." Did his briefing not include a full account of his actions at Heaven's Arena? Does he know what it is to accuse his people of terrorism and witchcraft?

Suffice it to say negotiations with the Association fail.

Nevertheless, the Hunters are not the only ones with freedom of movement between tiers. Plenty of royals and VIPs have certain tastes that may only be satisfied by commoners whom no one will miss. Assuming the identity of a random guard and find some healthy-looking whores will be easy enough, but before Chrollo can do so, he is approached himself by a discreet pair of suits without any embroidered _H_ on the lapel. 

Apparently his name has traveled even to the ears of royalty, and he has fans in higher places than he ever imagined. Chrollo Lucilfer makes it through the bulkhead in a gilded elevator with an imperial escort, and there is not a damned thing the Hunters can do about it. 


	3. DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> general tserriednich warnings

**THE FIVE EMANATIONS**  
**The Guiding Light**  
**The Light Outstretched**  
**The Strengthening Light**  
**The Light of Transfiguration**  
**The Light of Creation**

The Sixth Emanation cannot be considered a standard emanation, as the All-Encompassing One is no individual facet, but a shadow of the beam as it crosses through the Prism between Planes. Vessels exhibiting the Sixth Emanation are uniquely suited to the task of soulcatching as the most complete reflection of the collective; however, these souls need the most careful guidance of all due to natural incompatibilities with being contained in a singular vessel.

**-Addendum to the Verses concerning the Guidance of Souls**

Secular systems of governments are doomed to fail, as far as Chrollo is concerned. Even elected leaders must be pure in spirit and in harmony with the souls of their followers; only those strong in faith may resist the corruption of power. Certain anarchist philosophies view state religion as a tool of oppression in order to annihilate human autonomy - a view Chrollo is sympathetic to, but disagrees with. This unfortunate assumption stems from the outside worlds long history of false gods and evil doctrine. In faith lies liberation, and in the human soul lies the foundation of morality. 

All very obvious to anyone from a free yet theocratic commune.

Monarchies, while not entirely secular, are a special breed of repulsive. Perhaps it is the illusion of theocracy that drives Chrollo to rage. Circumstance of birth cannot grant divinity, and holiness may not be determined by the self. Even those blessed with the sixth emanation must be specially trained; growing up, while other children might play and rest in the wellspace after work, Chrollo spent nearly every moment of free time memorizing the oral histories under elder supervision. The right to call himself a reflection of the collective was earned, not given.

Chrollo contemplates a painting in the hall, ignoring the escort. Eight wives may diversify the gene pool, but what about the purity of the royal bloodline? While it is true the spirit may transfer via waters and vessels, the very concept of a royal bloodline is an outright contradiction to the universal spirit.

Nasubi Hui Gou Rou’s wide grin offends to Chrollo’s sensibilities. The obese whoremongering wretch has eradicated countless minority religions in his pursuit of so-called Divine Destiny: conquering the Azian continent from sea to shining sea.

His fourth son, unfortunately, is _entirely_ pleasing to every one of Chrollo’s sensibilities.

Such cruelties exist in the land without shadows. 

Tserriednich Hui Gou Rou may be the only hope for the kingdom. Educated and charming, with a distracting library spanning from Aristotle to Zizek. He invites Chrollo to a plush lounge and offers him a drink, orders a servant to bring sparkling water rather than pressure him to wine. For all his riches, he is surprisingly approachable, and his soul is unmistakable if subdued: the iridescent black of the sixth emanation, the same as Chrollo’s own.

Not fully awakened yet. He either is unaware of the nen constructs inhabiting his drawing room or else is waiting for Chrollo's reaction.

Shizuku and Bono, at Chrollo's insistence, are waiting outside with the escort. Now he is glad for it; surely she would comment on the nen beasts.

What looks like a vagina dentata crossed with a starfish vibrates ominously from a corner, pressed against the ceiling. On the floor a woman-faced horse licks her chops in Chrollo’s ear.

 _Lie to him and perish_ , she hisses. _Attack him and die._

Protective conjurations? Some tradition of Kakin to protect the royal line? No matter, most lie-detecting abilities are easy to slip past. Body language proves nothing, and even soul-reading means little to a fragment of a collective. The question they always fail to ask is who happens to be answering at the time: the boss of the Spider, a soulcatcher of Meteor City, the simple man Chrollo Lucilfer, or the naked flame within? Each may simultaneously exist in both agreement and contradiction to the other. This simple process of self-sublation is something all might be capable of regardless of their particular emanation, were they simply willing to think about it. _Furthermore_ , there is no such thing as a singular and universal truth in the perverted sphere of the outside world.

Reality is shaped by belief and perception. Faith overcomes such abstract constructs like true or false. There is nothing to hide where all is revealed. Such are the mysteries of the sixth emanation.

The horse opens a maw of teeth someone else might find a horrific visage. Possibly the bodyguard who suppresses a flinch at the sight. A Hunter and a recent awakening herself, with bandages on her cheek and neck. Curious.

Chrollo will ponder her later; Tserriednich himself is much more interesting.

No outsider has ever shown so much interest in Meteor City - at least, not without disparaging comments about savage monks and filthy trashpickers. If the prince means to flatter him, his tactics are sound.

“Seventy years ago, my grandfather attempted to construct a railroad across the Backback desert to Meteor City,” Tserriednich says, leaning forward in unfeigned interest. “Officially, the assassination of every executive of the Royal Line was blamed on the eastern Mangol tribes - we were also expanding into their hunting lands at the time, you see."

“Sounds like we provided a convenient excuse for genocide." A touchy subject for Bonolenov. Chrollo settles back in his feathers. “Weren’t they the final conquest in Kakin’s pursuit of Divine Destiny?"

“They were the last natives to occupy the continent, yes, but the pursuit of Divine Destiny is endless… more water?”

He hadn’t noticed his glass was empty. 

The nen beasts seem to pick up on the mood; the horse turns to stalk the perimeters of the room with a flick of her tail.

“Theta, bring us a bottle - some refreshments, too. Letting our guest go hungry…” he _tsks_ like a parent to the female Hunter. A strange way to treat one’s subordinate, but such is the way of outsiders. “Have you read much of our history, Mr. Lucilfer?”

“We learn of wars from the bodies of the fallen,” Chrollo says slowly. “We learn of the world from the mouths of survivors. Our perspective is… different. The story of the railroads, for example.”

“How so?”

“No one has been allowed to construct infrastructure on our sacred grounds since the Japponnese recycling experiments. Besides, a single nation dumping ten thousand tons in a single load to a single location would overwhelm that segment. The system may be inefficient, but for us, it keeps the workload manageable.” _And when the foreign kings sought to invade us, we laid our vessels down on the tracks,_ as it was told and as Chrollo knows. The total toll came to three hundred and forty-five vessels.

“Interesting,” Tserriednich replies. “When we reach Divine Destiny, surely we can engineer something that works for both of us. Ah, there she is -” and while his subordinate distracts him, Chrollo stifles his dismay.

The nen beasts notice.

Theta drops a bottle of Perrier and a bowl of grapes beneath a forked and glistening tongue. She tries to look in his eyes when she refills his glass, possibly seeking some sort of confirmation: does he see what she sees? Is he aware of the impending threat?

What threat? The grapes are delicious.

"Most experts agree that establishing diplomatic relations with Meteor City is a hopeless endeavor," Tserriednich continues. "As for myself, I have often pondered what may lay hidden in the trash. You provide a home for our exiles, our disabled - every one of our undesirables while living in suffering yourselves, yet ask nothing in return.”

“We ask to be left alone. What could Kakin give us beyond what they already heap on our borders?”

“Modern medicine? Public health systems? I assume the pollution must have devastating effects-”

"Outsiders thrive on keeping us in what they imagine to be bondage," Chrollo says crisply. "We have emancipated ourselves in our own way. I myself led the last reformation to expel any and all sepolian aid. You cannot tempt us with charity."

The nen beasts seem to pick up on his own emotions. Perhaps he can use them to gauge the changing reactions of the prince to himself as well? They might provide further insight beyond body language; Chrollo does not look at the flick of a tail.

All Tserriednich does is raise an eyebrow. "My apologies, Mr. Lucilfer. I must admit I know nothing more of your people than I can assume."

"You know all you need. Generations of my people have been kidnapped and enslaved by outsiders with charitable promises. The real question is: what would Kakin gain from us?" 

"I understand this is a sensitive topic for you. Please understand: the only thing I desire from Meteor City is your knowledge," Tserriednich explains. "I believe Meteor City holds secrets with the potential to change society as we know it. In order for Kakin to reach the ultimate Divine Destiny, we must at least investigate. Have you ever read _The Travels of Pati di Kaké?_ "

"The explorer who crossed the Backback five hundred years ago," Chrollo recalls. "We gave him a gift of water, he replied with a day of labor." Kinder times, when popular thought swayed more towards _accepting_. 

"Officially, his account of the fantastic monks were dismissed as fairy tales. A hallucination brought on by exhaustion. So I believed myself until I learned of this strange power called _nen._ " His eyes gleam with childish intrigue. “Is it true every one of you is a user? How long have you known?"

It is true: everyone in Meteor City is awakened upon arrival, regardless of age. Chrollo himself has been awakened since age three. He can’t remember a time without having his nen - even when the bastard red-eyed demon tried to steal his soul, it yearned to escape from its chains.

As it turns out, Tserriednich is equally distrusting of the Association. Of course, they are devoted to hoarding the secrets of the soul. A certain suspicious bodyguard has offered to teach everyone nen within two weeks - one week later, seven would-be students have perished. One of Tserriednich’s own guards was mysteriously killed; as for his darling Theta, she herself has only learned recently. Tserriednich suspects her training has limited her.

Another one of Chrollo’s weaknesses: an eager student.

For a moment Tserriednich almost reminds him of Shalnark.

The problem with the Association is foundational; they teach nen solely for the individual. While in the early days of the Spider Chrollo relied on their tattered textbooks, they remained ignorant of the basic truth: only when the totality is understood can the individual be focused on. Although Chrollo isn’t at liberty to discuss certain religious matters with an outsider, he can happily teach Tserriednich nen.

Likewise, Tserriednich would be delighted to assist him with an organized manhunt with the full power of the Royal Army. Chrollo can have access to every security feed he likes, get a complete list of every passenger - which may be useless, none of the Spider boarded officially - as well as continue to monitor the Association members on board. 

The only way to reliably identify Hisoka is by aura signature or an outright attack. It isn't the full run of the ship, but Chrollo must remain confident in the abilities of his legs. If the faith of the head fails -

Chrollo doesn't mean to start crying.

For all this has been a pleasant diversion, the grief and the _truth_ remains: if anything, Hisoka is going to save him for last.

"Are you all right?"

He needs to check his phone. Requiring hourly updates may be a bit much, but it's the only way. Machi reports nothing. Phinks, Feitan and Nobu - nothing. Franklin - nothing. Bono and Shizuku - still safe. Kalluto (the only reliable Zoldyck representative) - nothing. 

Shalnark will never send him another one of his strange emojis, nor Kortopi one of his blessed typo-ridden emails.

How can he possibly contain his bloodlust like this? 

"Mr. Lucilfer -"

How _dare_ this outsider try to touch him?

"I cannot possibly fathom your grief, my friend. Please accept my _deepest_ condolences."

He doesn't mean it. None of them do. Those trapped in the light know nothing of the promises made in the shadow. Savages that worship money and prey upon each other for gain, feigning empathy in order to manipulate. This prince cannot help him, no one can help him, _none_ of them will for every outsider is nothing more than a ruthless predatory -

Chrollo closes his eyes and a soulcatcher of Meteor City opens them.

Of course this lost soul knows nothing. Trapped in the lies all his life, bound in the confines of royalty. Yet he has extended his hand to a stranger like Chrollo. Surely his words mean something to him. A meaningless gesture, but it stems from kindness. 

The soulcatcher slips his phone inside his coat. His other hand was twisting the fabric of his pants, he sees. Tserriednich only meant to comfort him with his touch - a delicate brush of fingers. How quaint. The soulcatcher picks up the prince's hand, turns it over to examine his palm. His hands are surprisingly strong and callused. What sort of labor does this prince do? 

The soulcatcher covers the stranger's palm with his own. He meets Tserriednich's eyes, and it is Chrollo who extends a smile.

"They were like children to me," he confesses. "My grief is a flood, my soul is floundering. Thank you for your kindness, Tserriednich. Words can be a soothing balm to those in pain, but the healing takes time and action." 

"Then let us not hesitate to begin the process." The horse tilts her head curiously at their hands. "We can start tonight. In a few hours, even."

"What do you have planned?"

"Everyone's who's anyone will be at the royal banquet tonight." Tserriednich tries to pull back his hand. "What are the chances this Hisoka will show up? You will be both my guest and a foreign emissary from Meteor City."

The very first in history. Although, is that not the duty of a wandering witness or a soulcatcher? To serve as a bridge between two worlds, to find the lost and unite them in the shadow? 

Besides, celebrities and VIPs from the second tier will all be present, and their ferries are less guarded than those of the princes. No better opportunity will Chrollo find to not only examine every person of interest but even cross the moat to the second tier. Shizuku and Bono are even invited. 

Tserriednich squeezes his shoulder. "Let's see if we can't find you a tux, eh? No offense, friend, but your coat smells like your homeland."

_In the land without shadow, deception glows brightly._

**\- Proverb of the Wandering Witnesses**

In the private chambers of the fourth prince, Tserriednich turns embarrassed. 

Tserriednich considers himself a bit of an artist, and Chrollo Lucilfer has been one of his greatest inspirations. Just one of many reasons why he jumped the bit the moment he heard Chrollo was on board.

Chrollo has never once thought of himself as an artist. Personally, he believes art is the opiate of the bourgeois. Nothing is more revolting than the sight of wealthy pigs spending hours in worthless contemplation of inanimate objects.

“The only true art I can acknowledge is that which is religious in nature. Guided and crafted by the soul made with the intent to nourish the souls of others.” Chrollo taps the glass of a Scarlet Eye. Despite lavish accounts of the many crimson variances, all he sees is red. “This, too, was a spiritual act.”

“Interesting,” Tserriednich murmurs. “What about the child’s head? The grotesque expression, written so plainly... one can almost envision the atrocities reflected in those eyes. Did you intend it as a centerpiece?”

“The eyes were damaged. I didn’t think it would sell alone.” He considers the face of the child and almost regrets preserving it. To think anyone must suffer to see a Kurtan face… and yet, Tserriednich finds value in that? “I don’t believe that art is something that can be created or kept, honestly. It is the momentary spark of inspiration that ignites the soul. Back home, we make an art of story-telling and symbolic gestures.”

“Perhaps explosions?”

“That as well. This was the same. A story unfinished, a gesture to be made. Sorry to disappoint you.”

"Far from it. You do not consider yourself an artist; I find beauty exists in the eye of the beholder. To think such perfect expression might come without premeditation-"

Tserriednich likes to hear himself talk.

The wall of flesh trophies is indeed making Chrollo uncomfortable. The Scarlet Eyes are well and good, but one preserved torso is infected with the withering of veins - a common disease among those exposed to the constant hellbroth of toxic fumes back home. What outsiders call it, he does not know. If it even exists in the outside world. On the opposite side, an infant bloated with kwashiorkor swims in yellow fluid. The disease has since been eradicated since they began crushing crickets rather than clay in breastmilk, but who knows how long ago this vessel was snatched.

The horse flecks spittle on his cheek.

Chrollo redirects his bloodlust towards indulging the prince. He’s all ears for Chrollo’s memories of the slaughter. They often comforted him during his lone wanderings after his encounter with the survivor: the screams and wails and gnashing of teeth, the slip and slide of his hands through their intestines. How the light went out in their eyes when he tore their future generation to pieces in front of them, leaving nothing but the empty glow of fury.

What inspires his own curiosity is the wall of tattooed skins. One is still drying, stretched tight on a rack. Another is a work in progress, but Tserriednich admits the tattoos are not his own design. He does skin them himself - an answer for the calluses - and has a fine collection of tools, ranging from delicate blades meant to slip under the thin skin of the inner forearm to curved knives meant for scalping.

As for the meat, his personal chef has an exquisite repertoire and discerning palate. Some may even appear at the banquet tonight.

So the prince sought a fellow-minded butcher.

Unlike Chrollo, Tserriednich attaches vast pretension to the act of killing. A bright-eyed child in Yorknew once asked Chrollo how he could kill someone with nothing to do with him. It took an existential crisis and a trip back home before he realized the answer: _because they have everything to do with us._

"Mark has a tendency to pick women he personally finds attractive." Tserriednich idly strokes the drying skin. "I wonder if you might have a more discerning eye. Help me pluck the treasure from the trash, and you may very well have the run of the ship, my friend."

Chrollo's mouth goes dry.

"I think," he replies, "that this might be the start of a most beautiful friendship."

Bloodlust flares. Love at first sight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not to remind you of the Real World in the fantasyland of ao3, but take a moment to support black-owned businesses and advocacy groups. keep resisting, keep fighting, keep learning. with patience, diligence, and a few good riots, we can achieve a better society. it is long /past/ time to upheave a system build on racial oppression and injustice. 
> 
> anyways, i started shipping qworfrriednich the moment i sat them down in a room together and these jackoffs jacking each other off verbally is too much fun to indulge in. but well: things are going be Happening soon.


	4. DESIRE x DUTY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you may be wondering: what's worse than Quwrof Wrlccywrlir? in this chapter, we will find out.

And from the moon sailed a crow with a mighty screech, who landed before me and spoke with a tongue of flames: _Behold, your salvation is nigh._ And in my hand it laid an egg, black as its feathers and cold. And when I cracked the egg there emerged a most blinding light, and as I sucked down the white the yolk rose into the sky, and lo, the sun arose. And a thousand cicadas cried out: _Woe to the masters, woe to the overseers, woe to the gentry and landowners! May they look upon the glory and despair!_

But the sun opened it eyes, and I saw it had a face like a babe with eyes of benevolence. And it said unto me: _go, tell it in the wellspace, let every ear hear and every soul rejoice: I am coming._

**\- Prophecies of the Toluene Oracle**

Kalluto’s update comes in between outfit changes. Chrollo listens, says “Okay,” and “Thank you,” and “Don’t worry,” and “Shizuku, that’s too much cleavage. What would Phinks say? Try the velvet - that purple one. Yes.”

Most of Tserriednich’s victims were harlots. Shizuku may have to ask Theta for a fitted suit, but she wanted to dress up. His own suit is fine: deep black, silk shirt (also black), and Bonolenov - whose face never made it to the Hunter website - is suitably transformed into one of Tserriednich’s temporarily-licensed bodyguards. He himself has even showered. 

Ideally Chrollo might have used Convert Hands on himself and Salkov, but he currently holds no ability to puppet the copy. Besides, the Association is aware of that ability and will suspect him of using a double.

“What was that?” Shizuku asks, voice muffled by velvet.

“Kalluto’s spying on some of the Zodiacs from tier three. They're very worried. I’m not.”

“I may have heard reports of a dangerous individual making terrorist threats unable to be apprehended by any conventional means,” Tserriednich confesses. “I don’t think that dress will work. Miranda was flat. In both chest and personality.”

“And where is said individual now?”

“Under the private protection of the fourth prince. And quite separate from any of his potential bombs below decks. If anything, the Zodiacs will be pleased to see you here.”

“Security will be tight,” Bono adds. “If Hisoka isn’t at the banquet, we might have a hard time moving to tier two.”

“Once they confirm me as myself, I’ll be free to swap forms. There will be a way.”

“Or else I have my people search the second tier while you enjoy the banquet and ease the suspicions of the Zodiacs.” Such is the way of royals: to stand around simpering while their underlings do all the labor.

Why cannot Chrollo simply kill anyone who stands in his way? Politics and security. His legs are off on diplomatic adventures. Too many people in too enclosed an environment. He should not have threatened Mizaistom. Shizuku cannot fit in the velvet dress.

“God damn,” Mark says, eyeing Shizuku. “Try, uh, Sandra, red satin, she had the fat-ass -”

“What are you looking at.”

“Uh -”

“I’ll kill him,” he warns Tserriednich, and the horse flicks her tail.

"Forgive him," Tserriednich says, pleasant but with a tone of warning. Mark raises non-combative hands with a shrug and departs. Chrollo used to wipe her bottom when she was an infant. The human breast is a sacred organ that provides the milk of salvation. The shallow lust of outsiders is…

Chrollo smothers a memory of Pakunoda. “Try the first one again, Shizuku. Let’s see if I can’t find a shawl for you.”

The banquet itself is perfectly hideous. Once again Chrollo finds himself missing Paku - she used to enjoy these sort of functions, masquerading with Chrollo’s arm around her waist, exchanging delicate handshakes and murmuring information in his ear. He sees a young servant that might be Shalnark, slipping between the bloated beasts in a clever little suit. He feels phantom fingers curled in his palm. Kortopi was always so shy.

Outsiders pile their plates with abundance, raiding the buffet without a thought for their neighbor. Chrollo’s heartbeat quickens: if only, if _only_ he could tear them to shreds this instant. A woman draped in jewels orders a servant to clear an entire tray. The pale, drooping skin of her neck is exposed and vulnerable. Bono nudges him imperceptibly. 

One of these dishes contains Tserriednich’s victims; Chrollo steers Shizuku away from pork dumplings. Consuming the flesh of outsiders is a most terrible sin. The rest of the meat is fine: whole fish glistening in crackling skins, actual pork belly glazed to a crisp, whole birds trussed up and decorated with feathers. The salad bar is green as a forest. Chrollo’s mouth waters as he passes by the puddings and flans on the dessert buffet. Such indulgence only brings suffering later.

A bulkhead away, peasants pay the mafia in blood for cornmeal.

As for the company, the princes Tserriednich introduces him to measure him with outsider eyes: some mocking, some pitying, some outright disgusted. Above, their nen beasts circle each other in a mutual predatory assessment. Chrollo keeps his third eye open.

Unfortunately the souls of outsiders are not so easy to observe. They lack the free expression of his people, dim their colors through the lens of identity. The souls of the princes are strangely outsized, and their nen beasts are likewise overwhelming. Prince Benjamin and Halkenberg are especially bewildering: Chrollo mistakes them for specialists at first before realizing they have been benefiting from combination nen.

How could outsiders know what it is to join hands? Surely they are not aware of the negative effects of soulsharing. The wispy filaments that bind them to their followers are a more concentrated form of the mist that appears between residents at home.

“Boss,” Shizuku murmurs, “your bloodlust.”

“It’s disgusting,” he whispers back. “They have no idea what they’re doing.” Seeing sacred practice appropriated by atheist royalists would boil the waters of anyone. He shakes Halkenberg’s hand with a thin smile, tunes out his outrageous comments regarding his ideas on recycling and single-use plastics. If Kakin quit tossing their bottles in the trash, how could they construct new catacombs? How could they hold water?

“That one actually has a worthwhile mind,” Tserriednich comments after their awkward introduction. “It will be a shame to see him die.”

Indeed. One simple disease caught by a single member of his collective could kill them all outright. And yet - “Why, do you plan to kill him?”

“Don’t you know? Whichever one of us survives this voyage will be crowned the new King of Kakin.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Does it matter to you?”

A bit. Getting overly involved in foreign politics may very well affect his nen contracts. But Tserriednich smiles, and tells him not to worry, he has no intention of forcing Chrollo into anything, and slides a hand across his lower back. He desires a friendship based on mutual interests and learning, and brought Chrollo here only for his own protection, and now, here is another prince coming, time to smile and make polite greetings.

"Tell her what you just told me about Halkenburg," Tserriednich advises, gesturing to a stern-faced woman in a suit. 

Only that curses spread fast between those who share souls without taking proper precautions. Translation into standard sepolian for the scientist: their immune systems are weakened, linked to each other. Disease could spread quickly. One of Machi's many caveats with the religious practices of home. Tubeppa tilts a tight-plucked brow and says, "It seems you have found a most useful pet, dear brother."

"Pet?" Chrollo whispers later, but Tserriednich tells him not to mind with a ringed hand on his shoulder. 

As the princes get younger, Chrollo sees someone he recognizes. A Hunter and a friend of the chain-user. The woman who could hear a heartbeat. She gives away her recognition, and Chrollo stares her down.

A spy, then?

The chain-user must be on board. He worked with Hisoka last time, they must have teamed up again. The violent child psychopath who slaughtered Uvogin and Pakunoda must be here, which means Hisoka must be here, which means he knows now he is in the right place. He hopes the woman can hear his heart beat faster.

Chrollo barely notices the rest of the princes until Tserriednich sighs and mutters something about a whore from the slums he has no idea why his royal father married. And yet the one with the most suspicious of bodyguards - not present at the time, Tserriednich cannot imagine why.

The woman is modestly dressed for a whore, and the infant prince in her arms has no nen beast to guard it. One of her guards - whose green jacket and muddled aura reveals his loyalty to Prince Benjamin - somehow has his own third eye open. A natural soulgazer, capable of staring directly at the blinding prism between planes. The queen herself has a timid soul, hardly awakened, and the infant is too young to tell what particular emanation it may have.

Oito Hui Go Rou pronounces his name oddly. A dip between consonants, a slide on the ls. “ _Quwroro Wilcylfer_? Of Meteor City?”

A strange accent that completely butchers his name, but. “Yes?”

“Rather civilized for one of his kind, don’t you think?” Tserriednich adds, but Oito claps a hand over her mouth.

“It’s really you,” she gasps between fingers.

“My lady?”

“Your Highness?”

“Boss, why is she crying?”

“It’s you!” Oito wails, and thrusts her baby into a bodyguard’s arms. She seizes Chrollo by the waist, buries her tears in his suit, and leaves Chrollo to awkwardly pat her back until she turns up a wet face and asks, “You know me, don't you?”

He does not, and yet: like lightning from heaven, epiphany strikes.

Chrollo knows exactly who she is. All of Meteor City knows who she is. Prophets have looked up from the depths of their gasoline cans and paint buckets speaking of the Giver. The elders still preserve the letter she wrote, tucked in his fist and left unsigned. Chrollo came to them as a gift; of course there must have been a giver.

The Giver recovers from her outburst. Steps back, not so far back that she cannot grasp Chrollo's hands. "Your _sister._ Quwroro... I thought you dead. For so long..."

A bridge between worlds. A symbol of a better future. What sort of future the prophets imagined, Chrollo cannot. Long before his reformation the heresy of optimism lingered in some places; Chrollo imagined the giver a desperate fool on the brink of death.

“How long?” he asks. “How old are you? How old _were_ you?”

“I… I was seven years old. Our brothers - my father - I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“A leap of faith,” he murmurs. “Of course. Myself and my people owe you our gratitude.” He chews on his thumb, mulling on her face. Blood carries traits between individuals. She is shorter than him, but they have the same grey eyes, the same black hair. Rather young-looking for thirty-five, but outsiders age differently. He himself has been told he does not look a dozen years from an elder. “Flesh of my flesh, then. I see.”

“This is Woble,” she says uselessly, as if royal introductions have not already been made. “Bill, give me - there we are. Woble, this is your uncle Quwroro. He’s been lost for a very long time -”

“And now he has found you.” At Oito’s insistence he takes her into his arms. She looks uncertain; he massages her third eye with his thumb, gently rocks until she happily coos in his arms. Well-formed and chubby, bright-eyed and physically whole, as repulsive in her perfection as the babes of the Kurtas. He smiles at her on instinct, a relic of empathy training.

“It’s as if she knows you already,” Oito says, awed.

Tserriednich, awkwardly forgotten, ventures that Chrollo has a way with children. Amusing how outsiders consider the act of holding a child a skill. Not that anyone ought expect less from the very same who toss their undesirables in dumpsters and pass by the suffering of even their own on the daily. The babies of home are much more difficult to soothe - ribs quaking over shrunken stomachs, eyes crusted with congealed and spoiled food, bodies broken by glass shards and wires.

How easy it would be to tear this thing to shreds.

These thoughts may be blasphemous, Chrollo realizes ruefully. Though the prophecies are unclear on what to do should he ever discover the Giver, clearly Oito must hold some spiritual significance. A wild thought occurs to him of the Catholic Virgin and Child - is he John the Baptist, then?

Flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood. Though not united in soul, if his own flesh and blood belongs to his people, it is only natural that theirs belongs as well.

Chrollo looks down and sees his own daughter.

They’ve drawn the attention of the entire banquet. Hunters shift uncomfortably, the woman with good ears puts a finger to one, and another thought springs to the head of the Spider. Two vulnerable targets with a special connection. Woble might be too young for Hisoka’s tastes, but who knows how a pedophile thinks.

“Let’s sit down,” Oito urges. “Please -” and only then does she defer to Tserriednich.

“By all means. Spend some time with your sister.”

As if Tserriednich is his master. “I’ll expect an update within the hour,” he nods, and Shizuku and Bono, still in disguise, accompany him to his sister’s table.

As Oito tells it, the man who would become a most sacred figure in Meteor City was born in a Kakinese slum, the very youngest of six. Their mother died in childbirth, their father grew harsher in grief, and her older brothers passed the care of him off while her elder sister blamed him for the loss.

As little as Chrollo cares for his previous life, it is interesting that he came into this world via matricide.

Oito knew a quiet baby. Sometimes so silent she feared him ill, but he grew bright-eyed and curious, crawling then toddling after her. Before their father sold her books for booze she used to read him stories. Later she spun up tales of her own, delighting him as they lay in the lean-to while the echoes of violence hammered on corrugated tin.

They had too many mouths and not enough food. When Quwroro was not quite three they decided to sell him for a slave. To a construction camp or a whorehouse, whichever paid more.

But Oito remembered her stories. _The Travels of Pati de Kaki,_ the famous explorer who went mad in the desert. A popular fairy tale - imagine, a secret society of flying monks in the desert who took in any child sent to them. What frivolity, but she believed it as a girl.

“Your faith held true,” Chrollo tells her. “It is a gentle place.”

“It was the middle of the night. I made it an adventure. I told you, wait here, don’t cry, don’t even move, wait for the monks to find you, and gave you a kiss, and - that was that.” She smiles, scrubs her eye. “You still chew your thumb.”

A habit, when he’s pondering.

“You always did,” Oito says warmly, and the emotion expressed is something Chrollo thought outsiders incapable of. Honest and simple affection. Unconditional love. He bounces Woble on his knee.

“I can’t believe he’s got a daughter,” Shizuku tells Bono. “I always thought I was his kid.”

"Niece," Bono corrects gently. “Wait. You think he gave _birth_ to you?”

Chrollo has explained to her how outsiders procreate. As far as he knows Shizuku would never indulge in sinful recreations of intimacy with outsiders, but considering her mental disabilities... his inner lip bleeds between his teeth. “I cut her out of a swollen corpse. From certain death I brought her to life. So, technically...”

"Who would toss a pregnant woman in the trash?" Oito asks, horrified, to which Chrollo can only shrug.

"The unwilling father, I assume."

"That's why all outsiders are evil," Shizuku confides.

Only three and a fraction of years ago, Bono was an outsider. "Hard to believe until you see it for yourself.”

“I wish I could," Oito sighs. "If only we had more time."

Chrollo glances at the stage. The announcers, bouncing on their heels, are about to declare the performances. That’s not what Oito means, however: she has begun to give up on surviving this war for succession.

“If Woble is considered a candidate for king, why doesn't she have a nen beast?”

“We aren’t sure. My bodyguard - he’s ill right now - had some ideas. Still -” and Oito’s eyes, already red, well up again. “I do not wish this life for her. I was such a fool.”

“Well, if you want to be exiled into Meteor City, I can perform the necessary ceremonies.” So far from home, but as the wandering witnesses like to say - wherever the poor are trampled upon, wherever lost souls are cast out, there the shadow may linger. The Black Whale is enough of a hellhole. “They’re designed to override any existing contracts or ties an individual may have to the outside world. It’s no problem.”

He may as well have told them night is day. Even Benjamin’s guards exchange a look. Bill looks thoughtful and says, “Yes, that is one way. Though I didn’t think it’d be possible here.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have much time either,” Chrollo admits, and tells her about his own battles. He keeps his words careful, aware of the spies surrounding them. Three tables away the woman lowers her eyes to the table. Onstage, the announcers begin to bellow.

“Let’s get out of here before the performances,” Oito suggests. “And do stop chewing your thumb, Quwroro. My goodness, I used to think you’d flatten your teeth like that.”

Beneath the table, Chrollo opens his book.

Page 23: Rango Ranger - a chameleon that deposits a wad of spit in his ear before scuttling off to the listener. A fun ability picked up from somewhere or other - the original owner became one of Feitan’s pets, to be left alive and lobotomized in whatever strange chambers he has scattered through the world. The chameleon is quite cute.

When they leave, she waits a moment before leaving. Calling someone named Biscuit, of all the things. They exit through different doors. He learns the listener’s name, that he absolutely cannot be near Oito, and that Melody worries for the safety of someone unnamed.

“He’s terrified of both us and Hisoka,” a quiet voice says. “But he didn’t lie once to her.”

A guard tells them no one may exit the premises until the banquet ends - security measures, they must understand, while another voice in Chrollo’s ear says, “Shit, he isn’t awake yet.”

“What do we do?”

“Get him transferred. Easy as pie. Unless he throws a fit about the money -”

“You think he’d do that?”

“I don’t know him well enough to say. Try his phone again - hey, what the hell is that?”

Rango Ranger deactivates with a wet squish. Oito insists that Woble needs to nurse, and that she can’t possibly do it in the presence of others, and that sitting on a toilet to feed a Prince of Kakin is most disgraceful.

The guard directs them to a private nursing room. A space without for the guards, of course, and a curtained-off chamber where the queen might sit on a pillow suitable for her regal bottom. Chrollo drops the curtain behind him and turns to page 31, effectively sealing them off. Any of the guards who are nen users can still sense their auras, they haven’t effectively vanished, but the Safe Space - as Chrollo calls it - is a simple conjuration accidentally created by a therapist in O'Francisco. Handy for conflict resolution and times like now, when he simply wants to talk without outsiders listening. 

Now he can tell her the truth: that the Association has labeled him a terrorist and a criminal, that without Tserriednich’s protection he may very well be arrested this moment. That the Hunters have spies everywhere and are in the business of protecting Hisoka, and that he may very well be working with the mafioso who slew Pakunoda and Uvogin.

There is no one he can trust except her. She can trust him as well - even nurse in front of him. It's nothing he hasn't seen before. They are family. He doesn't mind. 

Whenever the Spider’s head must consider dealings with an outsider, he looks for their motivation for desiring a connection. In business, they mostly want money - simple enough. For those wishing to join the Spider, he analyzes them more carefully. Bonolenov’s tribe was destroyed by the very same rubber-tree and pineapple barons the Spider was busy robbing. They slew the DALE Fruit executives in their plantations, released their native slaves, and Bono knew where he stood. Kalluto desired freedom and friendship, the nurturing he never got from the Zoldycks. A chance to understand his mother’s heritage, hone his skills, and repay his father’s life-debt.

Hisoka suffered from certain delusions, had no concept of the life-debt, and believed slaying a member was the only requirement to join. However this rumor began, Chrollo has no idea. Phinks probably challenged someone. Perhaps Uvo and Nobu got drunk.

Tserriednich is still a wild card. Clearly desires friendship and enlightenment, but Chrollo can only guess at why he did not tell him of the succession war or the reports of the Association. Chrollo suspects he did not want to force any obligations or concern him with political matters, but he did not enjoy being paraded about as some sort of weapon in the fourth prince’s arsenal. The fact that they share both emanation and bloodlust is promising, and once Hisoka is dead he would like to explore his library. Certainly liberate him of some of his more hideous pieces of art. Definitely explore some of his theories regarding the art of murder. Skinning humans sounds interesting.

All that and yet…

He can’t quite put his finger on what clenches in his gut when he thinks about the prince. If only Machi were here.

Oito has simple motivations. Many sepolian virtues include duty towards ones family; she feels she has somehow failed her brother for rescuing him from the foul world beyond the shadow. She desires love, connection, and to save her infant child. They can sympathize in this respect. Both have something outside their own self to protect.

There is also the religious matter to consider. As simple as it would be to simply kill the woman and child and be done with this business, she does wish to seek shelter in their midst. While in the outside world the Spider’s head is less concerned with strict observance of the law, this is a unique situation. No soulcatcher worth their water would shun at first glance. If only the elders were here, but Chrollo must live without their guidance.

As for himself and his own contracts, accepting exiles is the only political dealings any residents may have with the outside world. “Describe the urn ceremony again. Try to remember exact wording.”

Oito very nearly chews her own thumb in thought. “When we offered the blood, they said something about… focusing on one’s desire for the crown. That every queen must have complete faith that their child will be king.”

“Yet you don’t have that faith. And the infant doesn’t even know what the word king means, much less hold aspirations to the throne.” Yes, they can do this easily.

There is one more problem that is none of Oito’s business. That is none of Chrollo’s business either. His faith must remain strong and unwavering; he knows he will make the right decision when he sees Hisoka. The Spider will triumph no matter what. Updates appear: nothing to report, and Tserriednich claims his contacts have found nothing. As if they would know.

And yet: the half-caught conversation between the guards. The mysterious identity of this suspicious bodyguard. Whether Hisoka or his compatriot, it is curious that they want to keep him from Oito specifically. The Giver may very well have another gift left.

Chrollo closes his book and opens the curtains, smiling up at the startled bodyguards.

“What? She must nurse in private.”

The noise from the banquet hall is dying down, the princes are beginning to make their processions. He does not need to extend himself to know Biscuit and Melody must be trailing; it is halfway to Oito’s chambers before he senses the mysterious Biscuit. Admirable zetsu, that one. 

No matter. What can she do? He kisses Woble's third eye when his bloodlust turns her fussy. The moment he sees Hisoka, this will all be over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: you-know-who shows up, and everyone sits down and has a calm and rational discussion of how best to proceed.
> 
> and yes: i did indeed put the Teletubbies Sun Baby in my religious lore. because..... im a genius.


	5. DEDICATION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> why does every chapter title start with the letter d? anyways: here's that character we were all waiting for....... biscuit. we were waiting for biscuit to show up. also, chrollo cannot go a day without making vague and violent threats.

Whatever ambush Chrollo braced for never manifests. The two petite Hunters await patiently before Oito's apartments, polite bows and forced smiles at the ready. Biscuit Kreuger introduces herself, her colleague, Melody Weise -

"We've met," Chrollo says crisply.

\- and her other colleague, Hanzo Kumo. "We understand it's late," Melody offers. "You must have a lot of catching up to do. We're sorry to interrupt, but -"

Biscuit does not care for apologies. "You _also_ understand the Association is tasked with managing the security detail for the princes. If we might ask you a few questions -"

"For the last time, I know of no terrorists."

"I believe the correct term is martyrs, yes?"

Fair enough. 

Oito's apartments are as lavish as the rest of this blighted ship: hangings that could end a famine, a vase Chrollo knows he's stolen before, a serving woman who scuttles off to make tea. Woble ought to be put to bed, but Oito delights to see her snuffling in Chrollo's arms, and so the second interrogation begins: Chrollo and his newfound family curled on the sofa while the Hunters perch awkwardly in drawn-up armchairs. At least, Melody and Hanzo are awkward. 

"I don't like that guy," Shizuku insists, pointing at Hanzo. "Something's missing."

"Yes, you're currently observing a projection. His other self is occupied elsewhere. Is anyone else using any abilities we ought to declare beforehand?" Biscuit _is_ the one who discovered Rango Ranger. Chrollo shrugs in innocence. "Then let's get started."

Yes, he passed through the bulkhead at the fourth prince’s behest. No, he has no formal contract with the prince. Chrollo tries to describe their relationship - a former client and fan of his work. Yes, Chrollo has agreed to give him private lessons in nen in exchange for his assistance in finding Hisoka. Yes, Chrollo has also agreed to induct the queen and child through the ceremonies of exile into Meteor City.

What sort of ceremonies? Private ones. The faith must not be discussed to outsiders with no interest in joining the collective. Will this interfere with the battle for succession? Why should it? The queen and the infant have no interest. Surely no one plans to set a baby on the throne. As for potential risk when Woble is older, to that Chrollo recites the line: what they have accepted, none may take away.

“Not even herself?” Biscuit asks. "Suppose someday she begins to look beyond Meteor City. What then?" _Like you did,_ she means.

"Her and what army? Whosoever joins hands in the shadow may not be separated." Chrollo shrugs, ruffles curls of blonde hair. “I hardly see how my own flesh and blood might be an exception."

"You can't simply decide to kidnap a prince straight out of the battle," Biscuit objects. "There will be complications, you realize."

Actually, Chrollo can do whatever he wants. What could Nasubi do? All of his princes and plenty of his military are hundreds of miles from home. Does he wish to start a war with Meteor City on the cusp of colonizing new territory? Is he a complete fool? "Surely you must have wondered how our martyrs manage to strike all of their targets at once. All over the world, no matter the distance. This has been documented."

Hanzo starts. "We have theories, in Jappon -"

"You presume to speculate? I'll tell you what you must know. Those united in the faith may never be parted. Souls once cleaved never forget. Distance is no severance. My soul remains in eternal -"

"I think I understand," Biscuit says quickly.

"I'm not finished."

"Save it for when you need to convince Nasubi. Believe me, we are... very much certain..."

"We'd rather not get involved with any of that, ah, religious -"

" _Customs,_ " Melody finishes. "We'll do our best to make sure no one interferes in your private religious ceremonies."

"I don't understand," Oito whispers slowly; Chrollo squeezes her hand. She will.

So the Association extends their respect to a soulcatcher of Meteor City. And should there be any bombers - sorry, _martyrs_ on board: they are bound to a sacred duty. While the Spider will catch their target first, whatever they do afterward is their own spiritual path and may not be discussed.

Though if the soulcatcher might venture a guess, they will find anyone who assisted or helped Hisoka on board. Possibly Hunters. Some might seek him out for spiritual guidance. None of this Chrollo says aloud. Woble’s breath falls damp on his collarbone. Shimano's chamomile settles his bloodlust. In the lull Biscuit asks Oito how old Woble is, she's quite a precious little one. Things are veering dangerously comfortable until someone knocks on the door.

This is all the confirmation he needs: the slight stiffening of Melody's shoulders. The flick of tension at the corner of Hanzo's eyelids. Biscuit's calm turns forceful. 

They are hiding someone from him.

At the door is Theta with a gift from the fourth prince. His killing coat is cleaned, the feathers powdered and fluffed. At his order Bonolenov performs inventory, setting each item on the coffee table in between the sofa and the interrogators. A twenty-pack of ballpoint pens, a few cricket-studded clay bars from home, two vials of poison, emergency tampons for Shizuku, and a three-knife holster only holding one. The other two are on him. "My waterbottle is missing," he notes. "I had some other things as well. Does he know his crime, or did he think it was trash?"

"Probably just a misunderstanding, boss."

"I'm sure he meant no offense. Here, set that down -" and now he may cuddle Woble in his feathers. She wakes up, briefly, goggles at the tufts. "Aren't we glad it wasn't the chain-user, Woble?"

Oito knows who the chain-user is. Everyone knows exactly who he means. Either the chain-user or Hisoka: one of them was here and now is not. He has answered their questions and they will pay in kind. He has not lied to them. They will likewise not lie to him. 

"Kurapika's been taken to medical," Melody replies softly. "He will have no contact with you on board. As for Hisoka, I wish we knew more."

"We're willing to cooperate," Biscuit adds. "Fully and completely. Kurapika will be made to understand. You're a member of the Royal Family now, Mr. Lucilfer. Zodiac or not, any attacks on your person will be grounds for arrest."

"How did he end up in her guard?"

"Sheer coincidence. He can be reassigned."

How does Chrollo know the Kurta wasn't plotting to kill Oito from the start? If it had any knowledge of their relation, if their situations were reversed, Chrollo would have slain woman and child at first meeting. Oito is confused, he explains to her quickly: already two of his beloved have fallen to the Kurta. He has conspired with Hisoka against him before. As for why, it's quite simple: he butchered the creature's entire clan. Yes, every last one. Down to the women and children. 

She really ought to put Woble to bed properly. The infant sits like a stone in her arms. 

"Interesting, isn't it?" he comments. "Not last year her royal husband dumped nearly two hundred political dissidents in my homeland. Outsiders are so incapable of recognizing their complicity in cruelty." The Hui Go Rou dynasty aside, every outsider in the world contributes to the silent ongoing genocide of Meteor City. Someone breaks a glass and a hundred miles away a child slices their hands open. A car breaks down and a resident falls crushed beneath the wheel. How many times has Meteor City been bombed, only for her soul to be born again, as resilient as the cockroaches that sustain them? Melody chews her lip, Biscuit looks thoughtful. The knuckle of Chrollo's thumb is shredded.

Here is his message to the Kurta: if it dares to pursue its alliance with Hisoka the retaliation will be swift and immediate. It knows exactly the crimes it has committed. It can repay its debt by leaving them alone. He will consider the queen and the child as repayment. There is nothing more to say. The Hunters are dismissed. Everyone else he orders to bed.

Do the guards not take orders from him? Nothing happens in his presence unless he decrees it. He does not need to sleep, only to regroup and meditate. A creeping frustration strains his voice the chamomile does not help. The boss, the brother, the soulcatcher, whoever he must be right now eludes him. The door to Oito's bedroom remains closed.

As soon as everyone else is asleep he picks the lock and slips in.

A dim orange lamp reveals ruddiness on her cheeks. Evidence of tears now dried. She is seated in a rocking chair beside a fussily-decorated crib, hands folded in her lap as she stares at their infant while Shimano speaks in low tones. Shimano curls away from him, Oito squeezes her fingers and bids her leave. 

"You were my baby once, Quwroro," she says once they're alone. "It is strange to see you a man."

"And a dangerous one at that." He slides behind the chair, examines a loose cascade of curls. "You told me this succession war is a killing spree. You may have need of a murderer on your side.”

“I know." The chair creaks back with her sigh. 

"Then what's the issue?" Even the texture of their hair is similar. His own might curl if he grew it longer, but she shrugs off his touch. Why?

“I heard what you told them. About my husband the king. When he ordered the execution of hundreds I was at a fashion show. Buying up the new spring line of Alexandra McKing. Thought nothing of it."

If she would only lean back, she might relax into his hands. His fingertips slide beneath her hair to kiss her trapezoids, feel the band of tension at her neck. “Or else you believed your husband knew best. Suppose they were plotting to murder you? Your child, your sister-wives and their children?”

Still stiff. "...Why did you do it?"

"They committed a heinous crime against us. Our law demanded their death. You are no idiot." Fine, he'll dig his thumbs in. "You know what our martyrs do. Should I have let five hundred of us march to their death, or take matters into my own hands?"

Oito mutes her gasp even as her shoulders release under his touch. "You are something of a leader there."

"I have my duties and make my choices."

Eyes closed, she leans back into his ministrations. His fingers work forward, under her jaw, pressing at her lymph nodes. Skin to skin, flesh to flesh. Stress seeps from her body, creates tension in his own fingers. Trading massages is a common kindness between workers. Killing hands become healing hands. Here is his choice. 

Oito has a prettiness about her he's never seen in himself. Motherhood has made her softer. Her collarbones are delicate enough to snap. When Chrollo chances to observe his own vessel he sees nothing more than a flesh construct: something that may adapt to its situations. He is as aware of the meat on his bones as he is of his killing coat. In Oito he sees his cheekbones, his nose, the very shape of his own lips. He presses on her third eye, rubs towards her temples. 

The elders say these thoughts are perverse. But should Chrollo not be possessive of his own? She belongs to him in body already. In time he will hold her by the soul. "I have a servant for this," she says distantly. "Quwroro, you shouldn't..."

"Does this debase me?"

“I know what you're doing." A gentle and firm circle of fingers grab his wrist. "Quwroro, listen to me. I trusted Kurapika at first. I promised him ten times our contract should he find a way to save Woble. It has been over a week and he has no plan. All he craves is Tserriednich and - well, you must know. Now you come offering salvation for free?"

"My contract to you is in blood, not money." Chastened, he draws back, but leaves his hands on her shoulders.

"I want to trust you." She opens her eyes, twin pools of ink. "As for the enmity between you two... I will speak to him. He will come around. If he holds any loyalty to me, he will. And you might be the key to what he wants."

The Scarlet Eyes, she means. 

She is delusional if she thinks he has a heart to spare for a Kurta. Yet: better to keep the enemy close. Chrollo holds no illusions that the Kurta might be soothed by the eyes, but if that could keep it away from his Spider? Corrupt its alliance with Hisoka? Distract it long enough until he finds a way to destroy it. He should tell her of the chain that paralyzed him. The corruption of its emanation. Inside her crib, Wobble still nestles in his killing coat.

"Quwroro, look at me."

So he does. Her neck is a pale column of vulnerability. His soul sits on the tip of the tongue. Her own is still so feeble. "Let me sleep on it," he promises, and when he kisses her goodnight his soul meets her third eye and gives her his blessing.

He lets slip what he will. The kaleidoscope of light filtered through the catacombs. His children in the wellspace extending frail hands for blessing. The knit of flesh between him and his fellow residents, the sonorous chanting of the elders, the beating heart of their history running blood through his veins. This is his love. This is his duty. 

She resists, but now Chrollo gives her his fear: the ever-present meteor, fiery and hovering, suspended on a chain.

To the Magical Monks of Meteor City:

Hello! My name is Quwroro ~~Lil~~ ~~Wicysl~~ ~~Lulcif~~ Wilcyfer. I am almost three years old! I was born on November 15th. My mommy died but that's okay because now we have me and I am the most beautiful baby in the world. Please take good care of me. I promise I am a very good boy. Everyone loves me and so will you. Thank you so much!

**THE LETTER OF THE GIVER**

When he had to find resolution with Cleaved Wing it took over a fortnight. A moon waxed and waned before she could embrace him as sibling again.

There was one day. A week into their journey when the air hung thick as clotted cream. At the bottom of a small crater too many wet loads congealed into a swamp. Fryer grease and fermented fruit made pools in which bloated diapers and menstrual pads floated like lilies, absorbent beads bobbing in fungal blooms. Yet there in the middle of the muck lived a soul, and Cleaved Wing stooped to strap wading boats to their feet.

“Let me,” Chrollo said, and took her hand. From her fingertips he flowed to her feet, buoyed her up so that she might glide like a water skater, if not the Christ himself. So they struck out, him trudging in the boats while she, recoiling, led him by the hand. If her faith in him faltered, they would both find themselves facedown in sewage.

The soul itself twitched beneath a sodden film. Chrollo bent to unwrap, but Cleaved Wing flicked fingers at him and said, “Brother, might we not?”

“Haven’t you had enough yet?”

“Try me.”

She slipped into him with a searing tingle, twitching his fingers as they cast their auras together: to unwind the tangles of plastic, to lift the babe and carry it to Cleaved Wing’s arms. No older than four years, black and blue around the head. He laid his hands on the chest until the child heaved, spluttering puke on Cleaved Wing, and then he said, “Give it to me.”

“I’ve got it,” she said, and as she spoke their souls slipped apart.

“Sister, you’ll -”

He let her fall. Yanked her spluttering back up and cast his enduring and all-encompassing love through her vessel again. “Martyr’s flesh,” she cursed. “What's it to you? Here, trade me. The boats for the babe.”

“Are you kidding? You’d see me drown.”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to snatch the babe first. I will carry it to the healers bearing tales of your tragic demise. How you reached up from the swamp and cried, ‘Sister, please, leave me to drown, only save this poor soul and yourself!’ “

Chrollo fell back, plopped down in the muck. A good foot or so deep, soaking half his sternum. “That will do. It’s deep enough. Although,” and he stirs a thoughtful finger past a wayward diaper, “you can drown in nothing more than a bathroom sink. I’ve done it.” Many times: in the men’s room of a casino, in a restaurant kitchen, in the stately bathroom in the master bedroom of some CEO or another’s villa. You trap their legs with yours, press down on their back, hold their hair and feel their lungs quake. A loud and messy execution, but not nearly as loud as an explosion.

“If I wanted to kill you, I’d do it properly.” Beg the elders for the Sun and Moon, take him out in the desert, and make an end of them both. “Get up, the child’s waking. Do your damn duty, soulcatcher.”

So he did. 

That night she refused to kiss him or embrace him. When he mentioned this to Pakunoda, in a whispered phone call against her snoring back, her voice slipped seduction through the distance: “Want me instead?”

That was then, but this is now. He will not sleep in Oito’s bed with their daughter between them, nor kiss her eyes closed. Tonight she can either lie awake wondering or sleep easy. Her choice. She emerges wide-eyed and coughing from their bond, asking questions, he tells her: this is his promise. 

Shizuku has taken over the couch. Her lungs still rattle a bit in her sleep. A dark lock of hair has fallen over her face, her borrowed dress is rumpled. He tucks the shawl over her and sits on the floor. Back to the sofa and facing the door. Bonolenov is still awake, propped up against the wall and humming softly to himself.

"Can't sleep either?"

"Strange day, boss."

"You weren't with us when we killed the Kurtas. Neither was she. I don't think the Kurta will make that distinction." He sighs, catches himself. "I should warn the others."

"Nobu'll go mad."

"He'll put himself in danger."

"He's got Phinks and Feitan to look out for him."

Even if he told Phinks he'd spill to Feitan, and there's no way Feitan could resist taunting Nobunaga. Machi held too much of a soft spot for Pakunoda. Better not. Better deal with the Kurta himself - and as for Hisoka, can he not trust his legs? Does he think so little of the Spider that he must kill Hisoka himself?

A knee slides to Bonolenov's chest; his bandages have been loosened for the night. “Can I ask you a question, Boss?”

“Of course.”

For one with such sonic abilities, Bonolenov is soft-spoken. “This business between you and the queen… what are we doing here, really?”

“I’m not sure yet. There are both practical and spiritual factors to consider. Alliance with the royal family gives us an edge over the Association. And yes: if it comes to it, they are convenient bait.”

“Spiritual factors,” Bonolenov repeats. “I know the Spider isn’t particularly religious, but as for you...”

“My faith is strong enough for the whole of the Spider. They respect my status back home." Phinks still prays, even wears traditional robes and insectoid masks. So he has since the soulcatcher spoke up for a violent teen on the verge of shunning. "Tell me about your tribe, the Gyudondond. What did they worship? What did they pray to?"

"To the sound of the jungle," Bono says wistfully. "Hissing bugs and howling monkeys. The Zabazon river - you'd hear the falls from a mile away. And whenever it rained -" the holes in his hands make a sigh, his fingers drum on his thumbs. 

"You miss it still."

"Course I do."

There is music in Meteor City. Rattling cans and pounding oil drums. Screaming cicadas and the fluttery beat of bottled flies. Their only melodies are recitations, their only dance is the stomping ritual of pantomime violence. But once there were dancers in Bonolenov's tribe who turned their bodies into flutes.

"Tell me more," he begs, and Bono's steady voice comes alive with the stories of his people, a race that will never sing again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i actually had kp here at first but all he did was fuck shit up and everyone else was too competent to let that happen lmao. there were two more scenes i may regret removing to save for the next chapter but, whatever. i'm waiting for my covid test to get back.


	6. THE DEMON

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: Chrollo is lactose-intolerant! Real earth-shattering stuff here.

As a puddle holds poison and the Floodmoon kills, so no water comes easy.

**\- A Proverb of Purification**

Chrollo wakes at Woble’s command before she can alert her mother. Inside her bedclothes she’s made a mess; Chrollo bathes her bottom in the bathroom sink while she garbles useless baby-talk at him.

“Shh,” he tells her. _“Whisper."_ Woble makes a fresh piddle in reply. “Let’s find you something better than these nasty diapers, all right? Do you like these things?"

“Absolutely not,” Woble says. “I find them revolting.” Or so Chrollo translates from the impressive spit-bubble she blows at him. He’s had enough diaper-related trauma in his life: sorting through crusted green-and-black wads to find the lost occupants, carefully peeling them off a screaming babe hoping he doesn't tear the skin off with it, finding swollen and infected genitals inside. Woble's bottom is perfectly pink but the diaper won't fit in the toilet. He offers up a silent prayer of remorse before stuffing it in the trash beneath the sink. There, at least, he finds an appropriately absorbent orange rag he can tear and re-tie to cover her.

Once she's clean and dressed he quickly changes while no one can see him, stripping off Tserriednich's borrowed clothes in exchange for his killing coat. Woble drooled on it in her sleep, the feathers are a bit sticky. While she crawls around the bathroom counter he runs a thumb up the magnetic line of her spine. Soulbonding with infants is too easy; already he can sense a little of him in her, a little of her in him. He slides his hands around, feels her soft belly. The third chakra, the point of severance from the host, where the soul derives its power.

Woble’s soul is sweet and delicate as a sugared violet. Too new to exhibit any particular emanation yet. He likes how her soul looks against his, turning his dull black into something as iridescent as crow feathers flashing green and violet. When he slides away there is an unexpected residue. He collects his soul, double-checks, but it remains: a broken petal off the flower.

How peculiar. Must be a side effect of the shared blood. Perhaps this is why the punishment for creation involves separating child from birther by the snap of the umbilical cord. Blood and bodily fluids do carry traces of the soul.

But here in the sepolian world with such a unique creature, might he not admire the echo of his eyes in her own? Can he take a moment to sink his nose into her curls and inhale her sweet infant smell? His soul was made to embrace all; Woble slides in as if he had a womb already carved out for her, a dark and sacred space to wind the flesh around the soul.

Or else it’s Kortopi and Shalnark that have left these jagged caves in his heart. Woble’s sweetwater soul flows in a space it cannot hope to fill. Yet when he drags his face up from her hair to look in the mirror, both their eyes are wet.

“Qwuroro?”

Oito’s cheeks are puffy and stained. “Sleep well?” he asks, slipping out of reverie.

“Is that… you’ve put a chamois on her?”

“It's perfectly soft. And reusable. You can wash it. Didn’t you ever use cloth diapers on me?”

“Shimano uses that to clean.”

"...So it can't be used to clean her?”

They stare at each other stupidly. Too early for a diaper debate. Woble reaches for her mother, gurgling. “Breakfast,” Oito commands, sweeping her up. “Come on.”

The rest of the household is slowly greeting the morning. In the kitchen Oito tasks Shimano with Woble and shoos her aside, asking Chrollo what he wants. Eggs, toast, perhaps some fresh fruit or porridge? He used to be such a fussy eater when he was small, a result of never getting proper breastmilk. Plain gruel without even butter or salt was all he could keep down. Once she made the mistake of giving him cows milk and spent an entire day washing his cloth diapers.

Chrollo always assumed his discomfort after eating ice cream or pudding was a punishment for indulgence. _Lactose intolerance_ sounds like a stretch. Regardless of Oito's concern, he doesn't need to eat. There is work to be done. He accepts a cup of black coffee from Shizuku and opens his book. Rango Ranger is speckled cream on the countertop.

One of the downsides of Rango Ranger is that while it holds vision capabilities, it sees with chameleon eyes. Three hundred and sixty swiveling degrees of ultraviolet light leads to migraines. Generally Chrollo relies on auditory information alone, briefly closing one eye when necessary to navigate. For now he intends to make the most of Rango’s active hour and retreats to Oito's bedroom.

Shifting between wood grain and rug patterns, Rango slides under the door to 1014 to the hall. Three servants pushing laundry carts complain of cricks in their back.

“Did you see Her Highness's brother?” one whispers. “Can’t wait for laundry duty at 1014.”

"I heard it's against their religion to wash," her companion giggles.

Chrollo rolls Rango's eyes. Outsiders are insane. How is it possible, they ask each other as they slam their lids on their own waste, for trash to smell bad? Meanwhile, they put strange chemicals on themselves in pursuit of cleanliness, claiming natural body odor an offense. Chrollo once read a novel wherein the characters made soap out of rendered human fat. That would smell better than the poisons outsiders prefer

“Don’t even joke,” a third warns. “They’ve killed people for less. My cousin, you know, he was in Sapsang City, right downtown when the bombings happened two years ago. I’m not messing with those freaks.”

At least this one holds some wisdom. Still chattering, the servants walk straight through a hovering nen beast outside of 1013.

Rango eyes the beast. The beast glares back. But Rango is no threat to any prince, he is only here to inspect the guards. Just one perfectly harmless chameleon going for a stroll. Surely it's no trouble? Rango has no combat abilities whatsoever, can't even defend itself against a well-placed foot.

Permission granted. The prince is whining about soggy cereal. Biscuit raises an eyebrow at Rango. “Paranoid,” she mutters, but lets the chameleon pass. No Kurtas here, at least.

1012 is sealed and empty. One dead prince. What happened to their servants? Rango flattens through the blades of a vent cover and trundles on.

1011 holds no Kurtas or Hisokas either. Fugetsu brushes the hair of her nen beast while Melody talks on the phone: “Yes, I know. He’s -” but her eyes flick to Rango. "Oh, dear." Of course she can hear the chameleon’s feet. A chastened Rango moves along.

One more dead Prince before he reaches Halkenberg’s room. Their collective is better avoided, but Rango tilts its head at the sound of someone vomiting. Beyond there, one more dead Prince and -

A creak, a shaft of light. Chrollo jerks out of Rango’s vision to reality.

“Told you to leave the Boss alone," Shizuku says, and Chrollo forces his bloodlust down. The room spins on the axis of Oito's pale face. She wilts over her serving tray.

How kind of her to bring breakfast. Plain porridge, a few cuts of melon, and unbuttered toast. She sets it down with trepidation on the nightstand, wrings her hands until he swallows a gulp of gruel.

"Is something wrong?"

She shakes her head. "You - you're glowing. In your ears, and your eyes..."

"That would be my aura."

"Bill has been showing me some of the basics. I'm a slow learner, though. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have disturbed -”

"If the student fails the fault lies in the teacher," he tells her. "Lie down. Give me your hand."

He guides her through Rango's psychedelic vision, soothes her panic and lets her ease into his soul. She did something like this with the Kurta once: projected her consciousness into a cockroach. But Rango is a conjured creature with a psychic link to the conjurer; here she is more grounded. Still aware of her body in bed. He lets her walk it past the next few rooms.

“What are we looking for?”

“The Kurta. I want to know where he’s been _reassigned_.”

"I'm sure there's nothing to worry about with him -"

"Hush. Hear that?"

Down a staff corridor the door to the ladies WC opens. An unfamiliar Hunter slips out adjusting her pencil skirt. Most of the female Hunters Chrollo has seen so far opt for pants to complete their suit, as well as sensible shoes rather than her spiked heels. Her makeup is downright ostentatious; Rango catches incomprehensible shades in her dyed auburn hair.

The Kurta is crossdressing again.

**THE PRAYER OF THE REFUGEE**

I forsake my name, I forsake my past. May the earth accept me into its crater, into the place darker than womb and grave, where the great well of the City sleeps, and may my soul blend into the flood. Grant me mercy, my siblings. Restore me unto your midst. Let my waters fill you as you have filled me, and let me be reborn as your fellow resident. I forsake my name, I forsake my past, I reject the outer wilds that cursed me. Let the meteor land on this head, and let it awaken in the Holy City.

“It’s my fault,” Chrollo tells Oito over Woble’s screams. She does not hear him, still retching in the toilet. “It’s my fault,” he says, louder this time, sitting stiffly on the bed trying to settle Woble. “Please calm down.”

All the guards have broken in. They refuse to leave despite his orders. Only when Oito manages to stumble to the bathroom door, wiping vomit from her chin, and begs them do they obey.

“Shizuku and Bono may remain. Everyone else: stay on watch. Let no one in these rooms. The Kurta is on its way.”

He locks the door behind the outsiders and reinforces it with page 24. Once he cracked an infidel monastery’s charnel house by stealing this ability, now he seals his own beloveds. Oito nearly bruises his forearm when she grabs him, demanding to know what just happened to her.

"You tell me. What did you see?"

“Corpses,” she says simply. “I saw corpses.”

Whose? How many? He unpries her hand from his arm. “They could be ours if that Kurta gets in. Or do you believe he'll show you mercy because of your previous contract?"

“Boss -”

“Not now, Bono. Listen to me, Oito. You've known this Kurta for what, a week? I've dealt with him before. I know what he’s capable of.”

“Boss, we should warn the others.”

Chrollo tosses him the phone. "Uvogin and Pakunoda gave their lives to protect us from that thing, and it _still_ managed to catch me in its claws. It's had years to plan the next attack - Oito, listen to me -" 

She will not listen to him. She is still talking. According to her this is the best possible solution: let her _talk_ to the Kurta. Let her plead and reason, as if Chrollo hasn’t felt the strength of its restrictions himself.

There are very few ways to completely restrict another's soul. Certainly not without enough advanced soulsharing. The restrictions between residents are based on ancient customs; the restrictions outsiders may have on a soul are usually based on harsh limitations of the own user’s soul. Chrollo spent enough time exploring the intricatity of the chain embedded in his very heart to understand just how intimate the Kurta’s restrictions might be. He’d safely bet the Kurta’s own life is involved.

There are other questions regarding the corruption of emanation he can only speculate on, but now Shimano is knocking on the door.

Tserriednich sent an escort to lead Chrollo to their first training session. Two women. One had better not be a member of his personal guard or else Chrollo will have to question him severely, and it is already too late: Bill let them inside.

Woble claws at Chrollo’s throat while he presses his ear to the door. Outside Bill is speaking soothingly against the Kurta’s grating voice. It isn’t going well. Babimyna recognized it on sight. Now it prances around in clacking heels declaring it’s come to put an end to this farce, that it must speak to the Queen, that Chrollo is a liar and using a manipulative ability on his sister, and that Biscuit is absolutely not his commander for he is a Zodiac and a figure of some importance in some pathetic mafia family and the inside of Chrollo’s lip is bleeding and everyone must please shut up be quiet let him think just five minutes is all he needs -

He closes his eyes and finds the still and sunken well of his soul, a thousand meters beneath the earth. Inhale and water rises through bedrock, silt, and clay. Exhale and he can see it now, glimmering in the depths of the well. Inhale, draw it up, exhale, watch it ripple, until the well is full and he can spill into Woble and settle her tears.

“Put down Blinky,” he tells Shizuku. “Bono, relax. Oito, allow me. We’ll be right back.”

If he knows anything about nen, those chains can’t hold two at once.

His book disappears and the door unlocks. In the chaos of the outer chamber he is serene and silent as a dropped pin, and just as unnoticeable until he tells the Kurta’s back, “Please, you’re frightening my family.”

The Kurta goes rigid before spinning on its heels and proving his gamble correct. Dead red eyes stare through him.

“Hello again," Chrollo says.

“Unhand the Prince, Lucilfer!”

“You mean my daughter?”

"I have no association with her," Theta says quickly. "I met her at the door. The fourth prince sends -"

"Silence," he tells her. "Why are you here, Kurta?"

“Because this is my _post_. As the head of the eighth queens security team -”

“That's not what the Association told me. Your contract is null and void. Oito is under _my_ protection.” Woble curls into his chest. “You’re scaring my daughter.”

“ _Niece_ , idiot," the Kurta spits. "That’s your niece. If your lies are to be believed, at least get your facts straight.”

Babimyna does not smile. “Mr. Lucilfer, please go back inside. We’ll handle this.”

“Because you’ve done such an impeccable job already?” the Kurta snaps. “He’s clearly using some sort of manipulative ability. He’s doing something to them both! Give Woble to me. Where is the Queen? Let me speak to the Queen.”

“Where is Hisoka?”

“Everyone, please -”

Woble screams, burying her face in Chrollo's feathers.

"See!" The Kurta points a chained hand. "That doesn't make sense! She used to like me! It's _evident_ he's manipulating them!"

“I know you’re in contact with Hisoka,” Chrollo continues mildly, giving Woble a brief kiss. “I suppose I must congratulate you on finding my family before me. But the plot ends here. I will not allow you to hurt them.”

“Hurt them? Are you insane? The only one they’re in danger from is _you!_ ” The latter is delivered at a bloodcurdling shriek. The Kurta tears off its wig and stomps it under the heel. Like a child throwing a temper tantrum. How old is thing supposed to be? Woble continues to wail as Chrollo strokes the back of her neck.

“Are you quite finished? If you truly cared, you’d tell me where Hisoka is. Would you see them dead at his hands by virtue of association?”

A Kurta's face is a most tricky mask. Unlike most outsiders with their puddle-deep emotions, their eyes drain their soul of energy. Despite sepolian proverbs, the optical orbs are not the only window to the soul but only one part of the vast network of nodes in the human body. Chrollo wonders, watching the Kurta's face contort as its eyes flash from red to brown to red again. It stutters, sways on its heels. Now it coughs and falls into Bill’s ready arms. Now it snarls and shoves him away, but a trickle of blood runs down its chin.

Bill retreats, hands raised, and allows it to find its balance on its own. Babimyna has never smiled or even smirked in his life.

A weakness? Opening his third eye, Chrollo tilts his head curiously at the corrupted aura. The conjurer's light of creation stained with furious red and black that twist into chains. A soul shredded and remade into something unrecognizable. The Kurta resumes coughing blood.

It is most unwise to make a binding vow one cannot keep.

The bedroom door creaks; Oito, nervously, tugs Chrollo’s sleeve. “Let me? Please?”

The Kurta is slowly dying and not worth her time, but Bonolenov holds up his phone. "It's Franklin, Boss." His thumb slides across the message: _Call me once you get this. Might be important._

"Go ahead. I don't have time for this," he tells her, and sweeps back into the bedroom.

It's too loud. Into the bathroom, into the tub, where he can lay back while Woble sobs on his chest. He puts Franklin on speaker for Bonolenov and Shizuku's benefit.

"Found some of the little folks from home," Franklin rumbles. "They won't tell me what's wrong."

"Are they there now?"

"Yep. Come here, guys. Just put him on speaker - no, press - it's all right. He can hear you."

The soulcatcher waits patiently for the martyrs to work out the phone. Three of them are speaking at once, then they cannot decide who ought to speak, then someone accidentally turns off speaker.

"I can hear you all just fine," Chrollo assures them. "Let the eldest speak."

"Soulcatcher. I am here in the shadow with you."

"And I with you. How many is your number?"

"Six of us martyrs," they answer. "Soulcatcher, we fear we stand in blasphemy."

"How so?"

"There has been... a severance. All of us have felt it. The balance is restored. The scales have settled. Yet we remain. Devoid of mission."

"I see. Do you know the toll?"

"We do not. The distance is too great. More than our number, at least."

The soulcatcher is always calm. The soulcatcher is a still lake anyone might dump their cares into. The soulcatcher smiles even if his flock cannot see his face. In this enclosed space so far from home it's a given any communications are under the Association's eye. What sort of fanatic is listening to them now? Will they strike first, or do they hold the wisdom to wait? Chrollo does not throw his phone into the mirror. "I see."

"We thought to destroy ourselves," they continue. "But we have consecrated ourselves to a target. There are no targets to pursue. We thought, perhaps, as one who has survived his own meteor, you could advise us."

"What have you been doing so far? Where are you staying?"

"In a place of great abundance. There is water and food. We eat of the scraps and do our labor daily."

"They've been working the dish-pit in the cafeteria," Franklin translates.

"Continue your labors," the soulcatcher advises. "Continue your meditations. Find a fresh wellspace in which to meditate."

"The same meditations as before?"

"Try the left hand," Chrollo corrects. "You are not burnt ash, but coal. You may yet burn, and provide warmth where needed. Eight days will you meditate. I understand the difficulty of prayer on this ship, but the stars still hang beyond these sepolian walls. I will speak to you again soon. May I talk to Franklin now?"

Formal farewells are exchanged: may you burn in the fires of daylight, may you rest easy in the shadows tonight, should the meteor land tomorrow know that thou shalt be reborn in the hearts of thy siblings, et cetera. Then Franklin mercifully turns off speaker and the Boss of the Spider returns. 

"Care to translate all that, Boss?"

Chrollo's throat is rigid. His soul is frozen over. Woble has finally settled down, and he cannot startle her again. He could squeeze her precious throat permanently closed right now, but instead he clears his own and looks away from Shizuku's worried eyes.

"Hisoka is dead," he tells them. "He was never on board to begin with. Beware the Hunters. Protect our own above all."

Such is the power of the collective. Chrollo slides deeper into the tub, closes his eyes, and falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chrollo relentlessly referring to kp as "it" kills me
> 
> on a nother note, i find kp extremely difficult to write? his character is inscrutable to me. a side effect of too much chrollo-loving, surely. comments appreciated.
> 
> anyways, if you couldn't already tell, this is extremely not a ship-focused fic.


	7. DEEPER WATERS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got carried away with pathologic (the game) and its made me even a slower writer. cheers! and yes, we are taking another break in Meteor City because it's My City Now. the plot of this is really just mr. lucilfer's spiritual journey. warnings for grossness and animal death.

The third meeting of the Spider is strangely staged: Chrollo, Shizuku, and Bonolenov, sat on the floor of Oito’s stately bathroom, leaning over their phones. Chrollo does not know how to use the Facebox application, such technology being Shalnark's realm in the past, but Shizuku wiggles her fingers over his phone until the screen splits into faces. Woble amuses herself by tugging chenille out of a rug and soiling her chamois.

Machi is late. She threw her phone in a fit of sudden rage and had to borrow another.

“From new boyfriend,” Feitan says sagely. 

“Shut up.” She’s in some restaurant on the third tier, stabbing a plate of noodles. 

Illumi is also late. According to Kalluto's whispering he gets like Mother when he's upset. The child is trapped in the dressing room of a boutique store, shadowed until Illumi brushes past the curtain, arms filled with dresses. 

"Kalluto. You will try these on. The chartreuse first, please."

"I'm _busy!_ "

The elder Zoldyck blinks slowly at the phone. Chrollo is half-convinced the family trains their souls to obfuscate, and Illumi is a professional.

Updates are brief. Woble is introduced in style, Phinks immediately starts pulling faces trying to make her laugh. No one aside from Chrollo, Machi, and Illumi seem particularly upset about Hisoka unfortunately; as Nobunaga says, “you can’t stop a martyr from martyr-ing.”

“I know you don’t like it, Boss...” Franklin starts.

“But they got their job to do. Same as us all. And with that out of the way,” Phinks grins, snapping his fingers, “we got the golden ticket to the first tier. Boss is royalty now. We’re moving on up!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Machi says. “Boss, there’s a problem. This doctor I’ve been following -"

Feitan sniggers. " _Boyfriend._ "

" - is a friend of the chain-user. And from the way _he’s_ been following _me_... let's just say I've got a bad feeling _._ "

There goes the secret. Chrollo sighs, unwinding a thread from the rug for Woble's amusement. “Yes. It’s here. And it's being dealt with. Under no circumstances are any of you to breach the first tier until I give the word.”

“Boss, please. We've been stuck with this mafia shit for a week now." Nobu tries to wriggle in between Feitan and Phinks. Feitan yanks him back by his hair. "For Uvo, Boss! Let me at him!"

" _No._ I don't want any of you in danger of that chain. Leave it, Nobunaga."

As for the next order of business: protecting the martyrs on board. Given Chrollo may need their assistance with Woble and Oito's initiation and the Association has certainly monitored their communications and is aware of their prescence, he'd like to house Franklin's dishwashers in the empty rooms of the dead princes. Outsiders have strange laws regarding who may live where. Sepolian civilization is so entrenched in their ideals of economic separatism and oppression the very structure of the ship reflects it. The royal family may consider giving shelter to needy an act of revolution, not that Chrollo gives a crow's feather what they think. The Association will have their targets safely under observation. And Machi may even escort them between tiers -

“Absolutely not.”

 _Kalluto_ may be able to escort them -

"Oh. You're talking about Killua's little friend." Illumi sits down on the dressing-room bench and puts his face too close to the camera. "I'll kill him if you like."

Not necessary. The thing appears to be dying already. Besides, the Kurta is his duty. Perhaps it's his anger at being denied catharsis with Hisoka that makes him think this way - this he does not say aloud. There is also the peculiarity of his sister’s feelings on the matter. Not that Chrollo cares what she thinks, but Illumi nods and says, "Ah. Family. I see."

Speaking of Oito’s odd attitude to the Kurta, here she is shyly peeking through a crack in the door.

“Sister," he greets. “Come here and introduce yourself to everyone.”

Oito has something urgent to tell Chrollo in private. Not like the head intends to keep secrets from the leg, but he allows her the illusion of exclusivity and follows her into the bedroom while Shizuku distracts Woble.

She may have spoken a bit too much for him, she confesses. May have made certain promises on his own behalf. Avoidant eyes, vulnerable posture, and the faint pink in her cheeks speak for her: she possesses a certain _fondness_ for this Kurta.

Repulsive. Does her royal husband know? Then again, it could work in her favor if she longs to escape the royal family. An affair may be grounds for divorce or exile if not outright execution. The longer he studies her the more awkward she turns until he shrugs and says: fine. He has evidence it isn’t collaborating with Hisoka, at least.

“We’ll probably be robbing Tserriednich anyways,” he tells her. “He holds certain artifacts of our people as well. If the Kurta wants to partake in the spoils, we don’t mind.”

“Tell him yourself. He doesn’t believe me.”

No wonder. Even as the words leave his lips Chrollo doesn't believe them either.

He stares at the door. The only thing blocking him from a beast he has no defense against. Royal protection and the Association’s decree aside: that wouldn’t stop him were he in the Kurta’s shoes.

How much of a martyr is this thing?

_Not so very long ago, only a mere two centuries..._

Still we lived in bondage. Outsiders came with drugs and knives, searching for our vulnerable. Strange customs of the cult of money turned their trash to treasure, and so they came hunting. Even the soulcatchers were tricked: by the food they brought, the medicine they provided.

To refuse their will meant death.

At night the foreign vehicles came, snatching up our sickly to chop them into pieces. Beneath our eight stars they stole upon our sacred grounds, ripped our precious from the collective. Not all fell to the flesh collector's hands: some were dragged off to whorehouses, some were given drugs and knives of their own, some of them were misled into prison sentences and addiction.

Until the Gift arrived.

A soulcatcher of the sixth emanation, a gift from the outside world, a symbol of change. He spat out their cheap bread and rejected their advances. He protected his children from their roving eyes, and all the while studied the mysteries of their violence.

He chopped them up as they did our own, left their pieces scattered in the desert as warning. He ripped off our shackles and reminded us of our history, leading us into the freedom that is our birthright. Beneath the eight stars of our city he created his eight legs, shaped souls into weapons. The Gift became the Curse of the sepolian world. Our retribution fell to his hands. Our retaliation to his legs.

He surpassed the martyrs with his transgressions. He walked the sun's surface and returned unburnt. Above all else, he did his duty.

**\- The Story of the Gift, as told by Chrollo Lucilfer.**

Fires in the southeast segment: the perfect storm of spilled chemicals, broken glass, and one clear day of sunlight. The combined auras of forty-five residents shoved the landfills aside and scarred the hardpan quick enough to keep it from spreading too far, and while the sky turned black and soot rained down the residents threw a festival: stripping off robes and tying on masks, boiling rare cabbages and ash-black tea in the wellspaces. A recent load of cadavers, plucked clean of maggots, saturated the haze with grease.

Two residents in the midst of resolution had no place here, but there Chrollo and Cleaved Wing were, still raw and red from another squabble in the clay mines. They sentenced themselves to their own sort of labor, dumping a barrow of clay in the wellspace. Freshly-crushed maggots and limestone grit came at their call for Chrollo to knead into the clay, working on the earth. Cleaved Wing rolled it into balls she smoked with a flare of her own bright aura before dumping them in a plastic bucket still bearing a faded Home Despot logo.

“Pakunoda tells me she’s been ill,” Cleaved Wing offered. To a nearby resident she gestured for another bucket.

Clay clung to his hands, stained his fingernails. In no mood to talk he pressed his palms against his mask, showed her the backs of his hands.

“Silence is the art of listening.”

Yet response is key to conversation, and no speaker can speak without listening _themselves,_ but Chrollo is in no mood for proverbs either. The resident arrived with not a bucket, but a rotted rattan basket with split weave. “Why don’t you speak to your sister?”

“We are in -”

“Meditation,” Chrollo finished, dropping his hands. “Thank you, my sibling. Go distribute the offering.”

The resident kissed him and ran off to the celebrations. Cleaved Wing grabbed another hunk of clay. “Ashamed, soulcatcher?”

Chrollo rolled his eyes. “Paku’s said nothing to me about being ill. What do you know I don’t?”

“I know she spent her days in the catacombs while you presided in the debates.”

A wriggling maggot burst between his fingers. Chrollo reminded himself of his own words and said nothing. He never led Pakunoda to sin. Not once.

“You hide it well. My fellow sinner and I did the same. I know what the two of you feel for each other, Chrollo. I wonder why she has not confided in you.” Aura sparkled, Chrollo fought a wince. Her frustration could char him. Yet she offered him a ball, and no gift might be refused.

All the smoke and soot in the air only enhanced the flavor. The juices of the maggots held a slight meatiness. Such indulgence taken by a stained soul ought to be sin. There should be certain amendments to the law, special restrictions for soulcatchers in a state of resolution.

Cleaved Wing’s gift required an offering in return. “We’ve never once sinned. I’ll admit there is potential, but I’d never ask that of her. As for her illness…” There was a moment during the massacre when Pakunoda disappeared. She returned, cheeks strangely sunken, and did what he told her to do. Followed his orders. Performed her duty. Proved that night that there was nothing she would not do for him. “The head cannot walk a leg into sin,” he finished. “If her soul is troubled, it’s the business of her and the elders.”

Cleaved Wing hummed and reached for more clay. “You trained her right, I’ll give you that.”

Pakunoda was older than him when she came to Meteor City, a girl of twelve in a stained nightgown. Between its folds she held a sin: a grey and wrinkled-looking cat named as if human. Already guilty of hoarding food and valuing animal over human, but the elders made him wait. Too early, they told him. She is still learning our ways. The abomination lived for a month.

At the end of it her own hands slit its throat beneath his grip. They blended the blood with water, dried and distributed the meat, ground the bones with ash, and the wellspace feasted for a night. For some unknowable reason she refused to partake in her own gift.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

Silence behind her mask. Shouts from the wellspace took over.

“Soulcatcher! Soulcatcher, come quickly!”

Hands dragged at his robes, pulling him from his clay. He licked and wiped his own as best as he could while they tugged him through the festivities, through a shallow canyon of flattened cardboard walls weeping poultry juices, to a pair of childrearers struggling to hold two small ones from ripping each other apart.

A tragedy: Shalla and Cricket were enjoying a game of toss-the-can when a stray throw hurled it at Namoutarre’s back. Rather than apologize Shalla asked for its return. Rather than give it back Namoutarre threw it at her head. According to Cricket’s testimony, it was no accidental toss, but a violent outburst. Declarations of anger ensued, the can was debated as a matter of personal property, and the childrearers themselves are scarcely more than children. 

Twenty waiting eyes on him. The closest soulcatcher at hand. Surely a bearer of the sixth emanation could suffice before it became a matter with the elders.

Ceremony is the governor of chaos. He ordered the children to sit down, spat on his palms and held out one hand to each. Shalla grimaced, Namou hung his head, but they spat in their hands likewise. Right joined to left, left to right. They mixed their waters with his own and folded their small fingers between his red-caked ones.

Their aura coursed through their fingers, ran up his arms and stirred in his gut. Many negative emotions stem from there, though this was more complex than hunger. He meditated on their energies, sorted them within his void, saw how they recoiled from each other. Jealousy: envy borne when the self is wanting. Anger: repeated frustration raised to a boiling point. Beneath it all, the soul-sucking creature called fear.

This was the blessing of the sixth emanation. The groundwater reserve oozed around their souls, swayed them in comfort as it undid their spirals. The words from his lips were not his own. The soulcatcher spoke from the aquifer. “Namoutarre. Shalla never invited you to play in the first place, did she? Has she ever?”

“Never,” Namou muttered. “She doesn’t even let me play with the other kids.”

“Shalla. You find Namoutarre selfish with his games. Always competitive, always seeking to win.”

“It’s annoying! He’s no fun. Everything's a contest.”

“Always has something to prove, doesn’t he? And so you reject him from your well, never allowing him to partake of your waters. Yet Namou is so greedy of them he’d try to take your very blood with violence.”

“They’ve had problems with water purification,” a childrearer revealed. “This morning sparks erupted from their joined hands.”

“I don’t want her _blood,_ ” Namou insisted. “I just want…”

“To feel included. You want to win at something to suffice for your losses. But why should you triumph over others?” Stir the waters deeper. Look within and see: the glimmer of your own face, reflected in another. Where does the fear come from?

“He’s just mad because -”

“I’m not -!”

“Dying?” The soulcatcher opened his eyes. “All of us are dying, Namoutarre. The meteor may land on all of us tomorrow. Even this very moment. What use is it to gain what can be lost anytime? What profit may be had in the face of death?”

“I’m not dying,” Namou repeated tearfully. “It’s not true.”

“You have not been long in our midst. Who were you before your rebirth?”

“He’s got the bone-withering." Leukemia, as outsiders call it. "That’s why they tossed him out. He can’t be healed.”

“Don’t speak for him, Shalla,” the soulcatcher warned, but a glance in Namoutarre’s eyes proved her right.

Namoutarre was not alone in his suffering. Many sepolian hospitals delivered their incurable to Meteor City. Outsiders charged exorbitant fees for medical treatment as if there was not enough in their world to ensure the survival of everyone. For all their great cities and clean streets, the cult of cash remained one of barbaric savagery. Namou’s parents must be grieving, imagining their child in a morgue.

As for Shalla, her anger masked grief. She could not spare any kindness for Namou in the sight of his imminent death. Pity stained her, made her weep in secret. If she refused to love him as sibling there’d be no pain to suffer later.

Yet what is pain? What is grief? If she allowed Namou to take his space in her soul, he'd be reborn into the same collective that awaited her at death. This is the beauty of the collective: their meager life is eternal. Their souls will seep into the earth and re-emerge as droplets suspended in multiple vessels. Only in death are they finally whole.

Such young children. Such fresh and tender souls. By the end both wept.

Yet again ritual provided routine. A bearer of the guiding light summoned. Together the children mixed their blood in each other’s palms, alternately spat in each other’s right hands while Chrollo gathered enough grit to turn the liquid to the slurry. With the left they traced the holy symbols over the others' third eye under his supervision: the circle and the cross, the sign of the meteor.

An echo of his own tattoo. Suddenly Chrollo felt revolted with himself. A soulcatcher in a state of resolution himself must be corrupt. Nothing looked wrong, nothing he could name. What would the elders say? He excused himself, bowed to the childrearers, and realized Cleaved Wing's presence. Again with her peculiar stillness. Her eyes held nothing for him to observe.

“What?” he asked her later. “Did you think I’d hurt them?”

She shook her head, hands folded in her robes. “The girl. Shalla. What is her emanation?”

“She bears the strengthening light.”

“Blood of my blood,” Cleaved Wing sighed. “The tumor of my sin.”

Chrollo stared at her. Green eyes. A scrape of auburn hair falling from her full maskings. He rarely makes note of these sort of features but now he sees Shalla in her coloring. “She holds enough love that it frustrates her,” he said carefully. “She is an interesting one.”

“What, do you plan to recruit her for your Spider?”

“You love her?”

“What are you asking me? As much as I love every child in our midst, Chrollo. As much as I love Pakunoda. As much as I love you.” A catch in her voice, a glint in her eyes. “It's only strange to see the reflection of the vessel."

Nine months Shalla formed within her. Enough time for _something_ to develop. "Outsiders often feel bonded to their flesh. I suppose it's only natural." Except for when they reject their children. Chrollo has read on obstetrics, dog-eared copies of What to Expect When You're Expecting. It only confused him further.

"Have you ever wondered... I speak as a sinner, yes, but..."

“Yes," he interrupts, saving her from blasphemy. “I once hoped our children would have her height. I’d raise them my legs, the same as my other children. An experiment of sorts. Joined blood, joined flesh, carrying the will into the future. A perverted whim of sepolian influence. It’s nothing. I would never tell her this,” he added. “But you and I both know the sin of exclusive intimacy all too well.”

“I used to hope for you two. You know that, Chrollo. I never judged you for it.”

“You should have.”

They abandoned the festivities, left the labor of clay-rolling to their siblings. Smoke still roiled above their heads. Surely the only reason for the tears in their eyes. But suddenly Cleaved Wing reached, grabbed him by the waist, embraced him and bent their foreheads together, and now he felt it: not hatred, not rage, but an unending torrent of grief borne of sympathy.

Resolution occurs in stages. Here they reached breakthrough. He kissed her tears, kissed her eyes, held her soul within his own.

He never made Pakunoda a monster, he told her. All he did was hold her hands over the blade.

**The Soulcatcher:** I am the groundwater, the reserve unseen. All wells find their source in me.

 **The Elder:** You are what leeches the poisons of our land. You are the water no light may reach.

 **The Soulcatcher:** I don’t understand. Am I toxic, then?

 **The Elder:** Tell, me, Chrollo. How does the water rise up in our well?

 **The Soulcatcher:** When we join hands in the wellspace with our siblings. When our joined souls unite for survival.

 **The Elder:** And when the water passes through the will of the collective, it becomes pure. Do you understand, Chrollo? A soulcatcher must absorb the sins of others. It is only purified by those in its midst. Without your siblings, what would you be?

 **Chrollo Lucilfer:** The water that kills.

 **The Elder:** Nothing, little one. You are _nothing_ without the collective.

The Kurta resembles some of the older new souls Chrollo has met: shell-shocked. Staggering baffled through the landfills, awkwardly joining hands with children, incapable of believing that this is their life now. That their first sip of sacred water is the beginning of the contract. Join hands in the shadow or die a desiccated husk in the desert.

“You want our assistance with Tserriednich.”

The outsider’s voice is dry as bone, as dry as its soul. “I don’t _want_ it.”

“You have nowhere else to turn. You made a fool of yourself today. Proved your instability. No one else will help you, and you're running out of time. How long do you have to live?"

“I’m. Not. _Dying_.” Claiming ignorance of its very own meteor. How quaint.

“How old were you when you first learned nen?” the soulcatcher asks. “Your soul is still young, yet you were able to falsify your emanation already when we first met.”

“What are you talking about.” Not a question. The Kurta clearly doesn't care for the answer. Chrollo gives it anyways.

“Those without the natural capability of the sixth - of a specialist devote years of study to master the secrets, and even then outsiders know little of the truth of what they attempt.” The Kurta’s old charge, the little soul-reading girl, who could predict the paths of another couldn’t even know her own. Her ability dwarfed him, shriveled him when it died. “How did you manage? What price did you pay?”

“I'm not telling you my conditions.”

"No need. I know a dying soul when I see one, Kurta."

“We all know you’ve been ill,” Oito says hesitantly. “You were out for hours the night of the banquet. Listen to my brother, Kurapika.”

The Kurta stares stonily at the wall. Arms folded, fingers clenching its arms. This is a system locked in stalemate, the soulcatcher knows. Something must change and it won’t be the Kurta.

Himself, then?

Is he not the all-in-one? Is he not the avatar of the collective? Does his soul not glimmer in the sun but absorb the blackness beneath the soil? Chrollo has not acted in his full capacity as soulcatcher since he slew the red-eyed species. The Boss of the Spider may induct its own legs, but he hasn’t sat in a wellspace with a fresh soul in years. Yet here he is: thousands of miles from home attempting to bring two new ones into his midst.

A soulcatcher holds no loathing in their heart. Even when declaring a shunning they do not speak from anger. It is the foreseen damage an individual might do to the collective that drives them. Love of the collective empowers necessary cruelty.

Is cruelty the answer here? The naked flame within says yes. The soulcatcher searches his wells. Chrollo gnaws on his thumb.

Oito holds special affections for this miserable cursed soul. How can he ever hope to hold her if he does not allow her own light to purify him? He thinks of Oito wiping vomit from her lips. Woble’s terrified screams. And, may the sun char his vessel to ash, he remembers Pakunoda.

He never saw the body. Didn’t even know until Hisoka mentioned a message from Phinks. Why blame the Kurta for her murder, when she made the sacred choice? Why did Uvogin, who knew the strength of its ability already, choose to battle it alone? They were martyrs in their own way. Should he deny their sacrifice and call this Kurta a murderer? Now that he knows the power of the chains?

Once he thought to offer this Kurta mercy. To allow it to compensate for the sins of its elders. If not for the history they might have been siblings. And if they were he might do this: sit down crosslegged before the couch, rest his hands on his knees. Palms facing up, hands wide open.

“Kurapika. Look at me.”

It - he stares through him. “What.”

“Would you chain me again?”

Steel manifests against skin. “Is that an offer?”

“No. But if you so chose, you could do it this very moment. Yet according to the laws of this ship, you would be arrested for it. Thus keeping you even further from your goals. Am I correct?”

The Kurta stares at him stonily. “Get to the point.”

“I will cooperate with you. But you will not bind my soul to your will.”

“You’re asking me to trust you.”

“For the safety of my sister and daughter, for the recovery of our mutual artifacts, for the protection of the Spider, we _shall_ join hands and we _will_ find resolution. There is no other way to move forward.” For either of us, he does not say.

Until they get off this blasted ship.

Until the Spider returns to Meteor City, until the flesh of flesh is restored, and then Chrollo can make up for the merciful mistakes of the elders a hundred and fifty years ago and send this beast to die in the desert as the law demands.

“You’ve got a knack for speaking without saying a word. Accept my chain, and I just might take you up on it.”

“I already said no."

“Just _trust_ him,” Oito pleads. "Please. He's all I have."

Theta paces outside the door. A look slides between her and the Kurta Woble's laugh nearly distracts Chrollo from noticing. Yet the change in her stance when she looks at him: the quick spark of focus, the tension. Prey in the face of a predator. 

She knows what her boss is. Does she see the same in him? 

The Boss of the Spider changes his face. "I believe we had a nen lesson to get to?"

"If you have the time."

"Of course. Lead the way."

A hurried procession blocks the way to the fourth prince's chambers: a number of doctors and medics entering Prince Halkenburg’s room. They walk through a beast they do not see, a massive horned toad flicking its tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, halkenburg is a goner. and chrollo can only function by having a constant existential crisis.
> 
> [yes i named an OC after a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfaU8XIBcTA)


	8. DREAMS AND DEVOTIONS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter, chrollo does drugs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also, cw for some extremely unwoke thoughts regarding gender - basically, chrollo has weird thoughts about Sepolian Gender Roles. the ideal in MC is indeed Genderless, but i'd hesitate to call it nonbinary because it's about sacrificing any self-concept to serve the collective. meanwhile, people bring all sorts of ideas back to the city, and it's... Allowed. like having a name. someday you'll give it up - if you don't die first, that is. but if you can induce lactation, they could really use the milk!
> 
> anyways, i started school again and suddenly have More Real Life things to do and I know it is indeed showing. expect plenty of post-humous edits, but i wanted to throw this out so i can relax.

Morena Prudo smiles sleepily beneath a crown of thorns. Clad in his own spiritual symbols, Chrollo stares back warily.

Though Tserriednich introduces her as his trusted confidant from the lower tiers, the very person entrusted with the search for Hisoka, his Spider has already reported her a lunatic. His third eye sees a void. A self extended beyond natural limits, black tendrils of bloodlust falling from her hair and spreading vine-like across the floor.

"You style yourself after the Messiah," he tells her, ignoring her report. "Are you an Orthodox, then?" 

She dips her head in a modest gesture. "After a fashion. I curse that father that subjects his own to execution and reject the world that sentenced a messiah to crucifixion."

"So a gnostic." 

Her eyes nearly widen. The lost sects of early Christianity are an admittedly niche interest. He got Pakunoda to read the Pistis Sophia to hear her thoughts on an example of early Christian sepolian feminism, but she only read it because she loved him. "Of a sort. This one witnessed as Christ did battle with the demiurge in the tomb while Sophia hid her face," Morena replies demurely. "Now she must hold true where the Christ and the Mother wavered. And who is this one? The prophet of the wastelands? Our lightbringer Lucifer?" 

Enchanting. The woman holds delusions of religious grandeur. While Chrollo finds the sepolian messiah a tragic yet inspirational figure, it is the symbol of the humble martyr he wears. As much as he'd love to indulge in religious discussions, Tserriednich is swirling his wine glass in silent panic. He must not have the Lost Books of Eden in his library. Chrollo only lowers his eyes in acknowledgment. "Wilcylfer, if you please. Thank you for your report, but my enemy is already dead. The situation was handled internally."

He deigns not to reveal it was a lost cause to begin with. Let Morena know whatever renegade mafia she controls on the lower decks, the Spider is inpenetrable. Tserriednich offers vague congratulations.

"Speaking of our enemies, Halkenburg's prognosis is not looking good," he adds, eager to change topics and regain control. "Thanks to only a few words from you Tubeppa has done the impossible. But he's not the only one benefiting from combination nen - in fact, Morena here is the shepherd of her own flock."

"And our mutual sheep wander in the valley of darkness below the hull. Surely you understand my concerns? We may be able to help each other still, my prophet."

Chrollo shrugs and gestures for another glass of sparkling water. Again these outsiders offered wine, again he refused. “To share souls is to share the source of life. The implied risk is obvious. I’m not sure what else I can teach you.”

Meteor City knows what else sustains life. A shattered cup holds no water. Yet in the cult of cash things as basic as food and water come at a price: not in the free exchange of souls, but in the trade of arbitrary pieces of paper. Shelter and medical treatment are tools of oppression, carefully doled out by those in power. Leadership is derived from bloodlines and bloodthirst while acts of service are viewed as degrading. What equivalent exchange can there be between ruler and ruled?

Moreover, what can they exchange with him?

Do they think he will defeat _all_ of their enemies? True, Tserriednich has given him two lives, but considering Halkenberg’s followers the balance is still in Chrollo’s favor. There is one thing that might solve the life-debt entirely, sitting on the tip of his tongue, but... no. As much as Tserriednich might like to turn the last living set of Scarlet Eyes into his masterpiece he has made his promises.

There is one more hope the Boss of the Spider does not acknowledge regarding the Kurta. Not even the soulcatcher knows it. It is the ragged child in the catacombs who prays: if he can find resolution with this object of hatred the elders _must_ hold a fresh evaluation. He will stand as no longer forsaken, no longer a living bomb, but a soulcatcher ascended. All that was lost will be regained. In ten years he will feed his fingertips to his daughter, cut off his tongue for his sister, and roast his tattooed skin for his Spider.

He throws that stone in the well where it belongs.

"Two things. Morena. If any of my Spider make contact with you regarding the movement of certain individuals, I expect full cooperation." Phinks' warnings about the Hei-Ly aside, same might be said for the martyrs on tier five. Illumi might be his best option to transport them. He needs something to do, after all. Why not stick pins in enough Hei-Ly members and let the situation handle itself? 

Chrollo has no idea how to hide them here yet. They won't do well as the servants of royalty - a pity, he'd enjoy a killing spree to create staff vacancies. A problem to solve when it arises.

Chewing his thumb again. He wasn't half so aware of this habit before Oito. "As for you, Tserriednich, I am removing my daughter Woble from the succession war. To your own benefit, I believe?" A scrap of flesh and nail tear off, leaking blood. "While I trust your father respects the ancient balance, do you anticipate any issues regarding the law of the succession war?"

"She wouldn't be the first exiled prince. Though, considering the war has already begun..."

"I've examined her on my end." He swallows the scrap of thumbnail. "Don't worry about the ceremonies. I'd like my sister, too."

Tserriednich opens his mouth, seems to remember his past words about Chrollo's own flesh and blood, and rephrases whatever he had in his head. "Queen Oito and Prince Woble are humble folk. Non-players in this game. I assure you I'll do whatever I can for them."

Not much beyond a promise. Acceptable, though.

 _Now_ they may partake of Chrollo's gift.

Theta insists on supervising the nen lesson while Tserriednich demonstrates what he's learned so far. It is curious that the Association begins zetsu training with closing their eyes. To hide one's soul is unheard of in traditional practices. This is a lesson Chrollo learned with his eyes open, squashed beneath a pile of junked vehicles, hiding his children from mafia and flesh collectors. In any practical use of zetsu, wouldn’t the concealed need to be observant? How can the third eye open when both are shut?

If asked, Chrollo couldn't define clearly how he started. _Ken,_ to protect his feet from broken glass in the landfills. _Gyo_ , to alert him to hidden dangers and lost souls. He supposes the water divination is akin to purification, but outsiders practice this solo.

He walks a slow circle around the prince, third eye squinting. The mysteries of the sixth emanation are difficult to predict. A quick combination might be helpful. Aware of the risks he might be, but beyond the Spider Chrollo is bound to - give or take - eight million souls already. The bonds of Meteor City cannot be broken by sharing with outsiders or else wandering witnesses would be unable to function.

Chrollo states his intention clearly. A brief exchange, a slip of shared waters. Tserriednich gives him a strangely appraising look that makes him wish he'd thought to grab a shirt first. 

"I'm not entirely uncomfortable. But you must understand - until only ten years ago such degeneracy was prohibited in Kakin."

"I'm not surprised. The laws of outsiders are often antithetical to basic human nature."

"An interesting way of putting it," Tserriednich murmurs. "Should we... retire elsewhere?"

Chrollo shrugs. Such is the way of these individualists. To think of soulsharing as something uncomfortable or private - or worse, illegal - is something beyond his own logic. "Whatever makes you comfortable."

A long and significant look passes between the prince and Morena. Theta's face is oddly pinched. When Tserriednich draws him into his private chambers Chrollo is again distracted by the wall of flesh trophies, but the prince only pours himself another glass of wine from the decanter at his bedside and spreads himself on a chaise lounge. His eyes are still tracing every line of him, evaluating. Chrollo is out of place. He awkwardly perches on the armrest. 

"Shall we begin?" The wine is the color of dried blood. Hopefully it won't affect him.

"You are an interesting man, my friend," Tserriednich tells him, picking up one of his hands. "Have you done much of this before?"

"Of course. It's how we do everything at home."

"Curiouser and curiouser." He pats the empty space on the lounge. "Make yourself comfortable." 

Chrollo slides down to his side. The prince moves to accommodate him, tucks a hand around his waist. Smiles. Tucks his hair behind his ear and asks him if he's wearing anything under that coat. He isn't, of course - he had to change in a hurry, and before the banquet he left a pair of jeans and a turtleneck in this very apartment. His coat covers up enough for now. When Tserriednich asks him if he's prepared, he only nods. 

The next thing Chrollo knows is the taste of sweet port wine and Tserriednich's lips on his. 

By the fingerbones of the First Elder.

Somehow Chrollo ends up on the floor. The fourth prince is entirely unperturbed. “Oh?" He blinks, offers a hand up. "Did I misunderstand something?”

Damn this outsider. Reeling, Chrollo studies the still-swirling aura. Alluring and repulsive all at once. Is this not the same mistake he made with Hisoka? He licks his lips. He does not recognize his own voice when he says, “Let’s try that again.”

This time he breathes his own soul between Tserriednich’s lips. Inhales, draws the other in. Black on black, but he sees stars in this void. They twist, curl into the spiraled arms of a galaxy -

And again the revulsion boils up and tears him away. Leaves him collapsed and gagging. Tserriednich reaches, he flinches, and he’s forgotten something, he knows he has, something vital and as dear and necessary as his own beating heart.

Above him Tserriednich’s nen beasts glower. The quivering wraith screeches, the horse stamps her feet. The forgotten thing shreds his insides, rakes the walls of the well with bloody nails. A force greater than his book guts him with a hook and yanks him back against the wall, through the wall, and pitches him the hallway outside Tserriednich's door. He does not resist it. Rather he flows with it, gathers himself and uses it to propel a mad leaping dash to Room 1014.

No need for the door now. He sees the object of focus, the entirety of his desire, and seizes her from enemy arms. Cradles her, croons to her, kisses her third eye, and guides her safely into his soul. From Tserriednich's bile to sparkling clarity, Chrollo is slowly pulled into awareness.

Shizuku is wringing her hands. She's helped herself to Oito's wardrobe; a streak of infant bile stains her shoulder. On the floor is the Kurta, another bruise growing to match the one Chrollo supposes was put by Biscuit - still poised as if ready to attack before collapsing with a ragged sigh. Bonolenov is avidly reading a women's fashion magazine, Bill looks ready to tear his hair out, Babimyna peers out from the kitchen.

"Well, at least he's stopped her screaming." Biscuit pinches the bridge of her nose. "Happy yet, Kurapika?"

“She's dirty!" Shizuku wails. "She's dirty and he won't let me touch her!"

"Look at that!" The Kurta points an accusing finger. "He's doing it again! It's some kind of manipulative ability!"

Biscuit shakes her head. "Haven't you seen combination nen before?"

The Kurta recoils. "With an infant? But that's -"

"Unheard of," Biscuit finishes quickly. "But it confirms the theory if nothing else."

What theories these outsiders have. Sharing souls is natural as breathing. "That's not entirely it," he tells them, if only to end any more obscene _theorizing._ "Something else pulled me to her."

The Kurta blanches. Biscuit kneels to meet him at eye level. "What do you think it was, Mr. Lucilfer?"

"I don't know. Nothing like this has happened to me before." Woble smacks her lips. "I suppose it's a side effect of our shared flesh?"

"Maybe," she allows. "To be frank, when it comes to combination nen even the Hunters are at a loss. But I've been thinking... you might be experiencing backlash from the seed urn ceremony."

Ridiculous. Biscuit trades a glance over his head. "Kurapika. You yourself were wondering why Woble's nen beast hasn't surfaced yet. They're parasitic," she explains to Chrollo. "I know it sounds like a long shot, but..."

"It's taken root in me?"

"You've got to be joking! He's her guardian beast? But he isn't -"

"Remember Halkenburg's followers? Have you _seen_ Prince Tyson's bodyguards? What else could it be?"

What else indeed.

Chrollo hardly considered the outcome of his actions. He completely dismissed the ceremonies of Kakin, assuming his own contracts would override any previous. No wonder he felt her residue so swiftly. No wonder she could wake him at the slightest upset. And going by his bizarre failure with Tserriednich…

He sits up, pulls her into his lap. Puts a hand over her heart, feels it beat in time with her own. Though he still holds no desire for her to be King, he has no great vision for her yet. Only to return to Meteor City where she belongs. “What does this mean for me?”

"You won't be able to directly harm any princes, at least. It'll ease Kakin's suspicions of you." She sighs. "You know your sister is currently being interrogated by the king regarding you?"

"What? Why?" Damn that king. A scab on this thumb turns to blood under his teeth. "How many times must I tell you, outsiders? I am not a terrorist!"

"Quit pretending you care," the Kurta snarls. "She's quite fine. Unlike your proud savages -"

"Questioned. Poor choice of words on my part. And she should be back by lunch. Please, Mister Lucilfer, sit down." Biscuit pats his arm reassuringly. He stares numbly at her fingertips. Is she brave or just insane?

He swallows his tongue and accepts the gesture. Regains his calm. This parasite is affecting him. Now he follows its pull into the kitchen. Poor Woble needed to be cleaned hours ago. The Hunters follow him silently, Shimano backs away from the sink and presses against the wall as if to hide from him. Once Woble is clean he wrings out her chamois and drapes it over the faucet to dry.

"Don't just leave her naked," the Kurta snaps. "And for God's sake, use a diaper."

"Don't tell me how to raise my daughter -"

" _Niece -_ "

"I rather think I have more experience raising children -"

"When you're not busy massacring -!"

"Here." Biscuit throws a kitchen towel at him. Yes, it ought to do. Perhaps the sight of him simply tending to his daughter is too much for the Kurta to bear, because he scowls and turns away while he dresses her.

“If you truly are her guardian beast,” he says lowly, "I suppose it means I have no choice but to trust you. With her survival, if nothing else." Stiff shoulders curl inward. He stalks away.

"Well done," Chrollo calls after him. "Trust is the first step. Stay for lunch."

"I wouldn't push it," Biscuit tells him. "Are you sure you want him here?"

"Completely. Keep an eye on him for me, will you?" He slings Woble on his hip, looks for Bonolenov and Shizuku. "This news of the parasite is troubling. I must seek prophecy."

Back to Oito's bathroom, then. Door locked, room secure, no one but his legs and his child to supervise him. So Chrollo begins hunting for the inspiration of the oracles.

Though he is no prophet himself, many a resident may seek inspiration on their journey. The entheogens of Meteor City may spring from anywhere: an empty gasoline can, a paint bucket, any aerosol can. Even random fires might offer a miracle. The first time he robbed a sepolian Home Despot he was stunned at the array of spiritual assistants on store, now he digs through bathroom cleaning agents.

Bonolenov clears his throat.

Bleach, perhaps? Though he normally uses it for chlorine gas - a useful trick to clear a room quickly, no nen required - he isn’t sure if it alone contains the proper substances. Dedicated prophets spend years in the study of chemical agents.

Bonolenov clears his throat again. Sighing, Chrollo turns to him.

“I know what you think about this. But it’s perfectly natural. Surely your own tribe used entheogens, yes?”

“We get our visions from nature,” he says gently. “These are… they can be considered… I mean no disrespect...”

“Unhealthy and brain-damaging. Machi tells me the same thing.”

Bono loosens the wrappings around his neck, fishes out some small bag on a string. “Try this,” he coaxes. “The fungus that coats the roots of the great serpent vine. The one that permeates the earth, the bridge of communication. We call it -" and whatever he says is in the language of his people, muffled by his wrappings. "Perhaps it can penetrate the groundwater, as you put it?”

The bag seems woven of the same bark-cloth Bonolenov used to use for his wrappings. When Chrollo sniffs its contents the strong acrid smell that waters his eyes. Many a survivor has brought the lost secrets of a dead culture to Meteor City. Surely it can do no harm.

“How do I take it?”

“Easily. Put a pinch under your tongue and let it happen."

“Can I try -” Shizuku pipes up, but Bonolenov and Chrollo both turn in horror to deliver a simultaneous and resounding _no_.

The scene is prepared: a single low lamp in Oito's bedroom, a pile of Woble's bedding and his killing coat on the floor. Chrollo makes a nest with his daughter while Bonolenov unwraps his throat and hands and begins to undulate. The song of the jungle fills the room as it rasps through his holes: the howling of monkeys, the rattling of cicadas and the gentle patter of rain on leaves. Woble's breathing is steady. Chrollo kisses her and closes his eyes.

Or: he rolls over and quickly vomits in a convenient trashcan, and _then_ he closes his eyes.

The serpent vines of Bonolenov’s people appear as dancing wavelengths of light. The five emanations beam before his eyes before clustering together, melting. All black. He is a child in the wellspace, he is ranting before a forum, he is running to the healers with a half-developed fetus in his hands, he is stitching Franklin together, he is butchering a man in the desert, he is breathing Pakunoda in, he is mad and frantic trying to find which fridge Shizuku’s trapped herself in this time, he is dragging the intestines of a Kurta across the floor.

That is past. All he knows and all he is. Where is the present? Where is the future? A crevasse opens in the desert and swallows him whole. Leaves him gently bobbing in a blackened sea, on his back like an otter with his babe in his arms. 

They are not alone. Here beyond the limits of the known world there be monsters. They reach for him from the deep, breach the surface to block out the stars, swarm over him and around him while he clutches Woble tighter. He prays to the moon, despairing for illumination, and by its answering light he sees hands. 

Withered, outstretched, begging hands. 

The soulcatcher silences his fear. He knows whose hands they are, and they are no stranger to him.

Pain is the soul-killer. Pain the fear of the vessel. This one will endure. This one holds no fear. This one will face its pain, shatter its vessel, spill on the earth and let only its water remain. Where it shatters its siblings will fall. To drink of its waters and carry its shards. This vessel will break, but the soul shall remain.

**Hymn for the Death of the Individual**

The first time Chrollo met a Kakinese native they were charred to a crisp. According to the truck drivers and the elders they came from an isolated mountain tribe too close to the still-encroaching borders of the new empire. He was still young in his training, working under a soulcatcher so close to their ascension they had forsaken name and sepolian gender entirely. Within the year Chrollo would receive and consume both tongue and ears.

All around them residents labored, carrying the corpses to the nearest compost pit. The ash of outsiders could not be blessed. Only Chrollo and the soulcatcher stood still, hands and souls extended.

“Do you hear it?” The soulcatcher asked.

“I feel it,” he replied. “In my fingertips.”

“It speaks a tongue this soulcatcher has never heard,” the soulcatcher says. “Yet the pain needs no translation.”

“It’s burning.”

“Of course it is,” the soulcatcher teased. “Does that soulcatcher know where to look for it?”

Chrollo pointed.

“Well done. Go.”

He sprang into the heap, tossing corpses out of his way. As he dug through rotting flesh the burning grew stronger, inflaming his hands until he nearly yelped. Every instinct in his vessel told him run, run away, but only the vessel fears pain. Never the soul.

There: a small smothered bundle. Nearly his own size, but he could carry it. The cloth stuck when he tried to unwrap the body, but he uncovered a face. Unconscious, but he could waken it. He winced, gathered his soul in his fingertips, and reached for the third eye.

A hand lashed out for his eyes.

Chrollo fell back and landed in a rotting rib cage as the child screeched in some foreign tongue. Still clutching its half-burnt rags to himself he aimed a kick at Chrollo’s head, spat in his face, and took off running from the reaching hands of intervening adults. Chrollo tripped over a rib, stumbled over a skull, and looked at the soulcatcher in desperation.

“Well?”

“What does this one do?”

“Go! Catch them!”

If only it’d been that simple. Through Chrollo could run it took great expenditure of his soul to match the child’s natural speed. It dodged faster than he could blink, leaped through the landfills disappeared into one pile and re-emerged in another, until finally his lungs gave out. A nearby worker scooped him up, chastened him for overworking himself so young, but by the time they gave him their blessing it was too late.

But Chrollo had already touched the child’s soul.

The soulcatcher gave him permission to forsake most duties in favor of his lost soul, and Chrollo knew the child would need water eventually. In those days before the Spider installed locked grates over the wells, many a lost soul drank poison.

He followed his heart and his hands. He performed the miracle of the sixth emanation nightly, purifying and filling wells solo so the child might drink. Six times he tried to pounce on the child unsuspecting and six times it fled his grasp. By the end of the week he caught him: sunken in a sludge of compost under which tangles of wire lurked. 

Feitan screamed and spat the entire journey to the healers, but by the end of that moon he knew Feitan's name.

These hands he sees are not just the hands of the Kakinese: they are the hands of his people. The downtrodden and lost. The desperate and begging. They caress Woble's hair and pull at his eyelids, forcing him to see. Yes, he tells them. He sees. He knows. They are not alone.

Every collection of souls needs guidance. Even the free commune of Meteor City looks to its elders. Protection, guidance, safety: all things they hope their king might provide. They grasp for Woble because they believe in the delusion of monarchy. The parasitic barb in his soul whispers: _but no nation cannot survive with no king._

Chrollo replies: _have you not suffered enough? do you seek a king, or a true leader?_

 _She is ours,_ they snarl, and he says: _yes, as you are mine._

Here she is now, slapping his face and chortling on his chest. Returning him to his flesh confines. "Yes, darling," he murmurs. "What do _you_ see?"

Soft cloths and warm baths. Fresh milk and clean bottoms. In the press of her palms he hears Oito humming. Woble has no language yet, only the exuberance of her lungs. She delights in his voice. Her world is shaped by his words.

Poor soul, all alone on this ship. She belongs in a wellspace crawling with the other babes. She belongs in the many hands of Meteor City, where no one will ever turn their face from her. He lifts her up to a near standing position; her rubbery knees give out. A soft thump sways them as Shizuku lands on the bed.

Bonolenov is still dancing, albeit slower. The river rushes and a tree falls to fungus while Chrollo kisses both his girls. Shizuku used to struggle with her expected childrearing duties. Too forgetful, too blind. She was fifteen before he felt he could take her from home, and in only four short years she's come so far.

How far will Woble go? He returns to his visions, sees the grasping hands turned over. Outstretched and open, raising Woble up to new heights. Growing under his guidance, shaped by his teachings. The Gift of the Gift. Even if Chrollo fails with the Kurta, even if Chrollo dies on this ship, the Spider will return to Meteor City with his legacy.

The visions turn vague. The Milky Way swims, every star in the galaxy a meteor. By the time they fade it is late.

He told the Kurta to stay for lunch, it is near dinner-time now. Under Bonolenov's advice he sticks to simple food, sharing buckwheat porridge and carrot puree with his daughter. Though his sister tries to put her in some sort of chair he feeds her naturally: her on his lap, sticking food-covered fingers into her mouth so she might suckle.

“My royal husband is convinced you’re harboring terrorists on this ship,” his sister tells him slowly while she saws at a pork chop.

Chrollo snags some bread, chews it to mush before passing it to Woble. "Oh for the love of -" and the Kurta tosses him a spoon. "Am I the only one who finds this disgusting?"

"He's not the only one," he tells Oito, and picks up the spoon. Sharing the source of life is essential to resolution. Smiling at the Kurta, he dumps a spoonful of his porridge on its plate. “The Association still suspects me. Isn’t that right, Kurapika?”

“I know what you are,” it hisses. _He,_ Chrollo gently corrects. Though it has a penchant for crossdressing, one of the first things the Kurta ever said to him confirmed its - his - gender. He himself has adopted this sepolian affectation out of its basic utility in his interactions with the outside world. Men and “fathers” are simultaneously perceived as the head of the family and as violent brutes. A young pimp he slew in Bostown once lectured him on how he had two different kinds of prostitutes. Visually indistinguishable from each other, but the clientele had preferences as for genitalia, and Chrollo understood.

“Quwroro, please. Tell me it true.” She wants him to look into her eyes. “I haven’t said a word to my husband. To anyone. Let me trust you.”

She has been weeping. Her eyes still gleam with tears.

While Chrollo embarked on his vision quest, his poor sister has been tormented by the very king he has decided to defy. Perhaps the drug is still in his system, perhaps he is fragile in the aftermath. He simply follows the tuggings of his soul when he leans out of his chair to pulls Oito into a firm hug. “No one will hurt you or yours,” he promises. “I will not lie to you. But you know what the stakes are yourself, here.”

His soul traces her body, sinks beneath her clothes. Finds the red residue of a caning, moon-shaped cuts between her legs.

Chrollo cannot kill a prince. He'll find out if he can kill the king. Relaxing into his embrace, Oito murmurs: "I do."

“Sometimes we must fight fire with fire. There are always casualties in times of war. But this one promises you - by my blood and my clay - you and Woble will preservere.”

“Oh, shut up,” the Kurta interrupts. “He’s an animal, your Highness.”

“He’s my brother,” she spits with sudden violence. “And he’s doing his best.”

“All of us will survive. Even you, my lost sibling." He spins up from his sister's chair, catches on for balance. Are his eyes wet or is his vision blurring? With trepidation he makes his way around the table, catching on chairs for balance until he makes it to the Kurta's side and grabs the hand that holds the spoon. "We will bind our souls and embrace as beloved,” he announces, and blesses the Kurta with a kiss to his third eye.

Kurapika turns white. He does not bother to excuse himself when he dashes, but the retching sounds from the staff bathroom echo through the apartment. When Chrollo tries to look for him he is accosted by strangers. Sepolian beasts try to speak to him, calm him down. Is he supposed to recognize them? How do they know his name?

“Sorry about him, Bill,” Bonolenov interrupts. “He’s still coming down from the trip.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see ya next month! or not, i have a pathologic fic i want to write u___u just... subscribe, i am a busy man and cannot promise any sort of regular update schedule
> 
> i had the thought of chrollo having a New Parasite back when i was.... writing the very first chapter. before covid. what a year, eh.


	9. DETAINMENT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowee.... i'm back on this bull shit! and i gave qworfo a power jump so he can fit in on the first tier. i also would like to thank the noted kurokura scholar [BugTongue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BugTongue/pseuds/BugTongue) for giving me Fresh Newly Minted Kurapika/Kurokura energy that helped me get back into my WIP! just do not blame them for any of the ensuing nonsense. i did give leorio Speaking Lines, tho.

Chrollo wakes up refreshed, restored, near jubilant. None of the usual post-vision headaches troubles him. He accepts tea and gruel from his sister, offers a prayer to the spirits of Bonolenov’s tribe, and checks in with his Spider.

Phinks, Feitan, and Nobubaga have been running hits on the Hei-Ly (Morena’s people, he learns) as well as racking up high scores in the third-tier arcade. Illumi has Kalluto trapped in the spa, but the child’s ability tells him the martyrs in the cafeteria are still safe. Franklin’s successfully moved them to the fourth-tier food courts without drawing the Association’s eye (and, apparently, he has Phink’s dealings with the Char-R to thank for that.) Machi’s dealings with the Association are limited to providing the Kurta’s old friend with a bodyguard on his fifth-tier rounds and working in the emergency wards, but she’s sent him ten texts with her typical tight-lipped concern since he announced to them all he was going on a spiritual journey.

She calls him back immediately.

Yes, he’s quite fine. No, it wasn’t paint thinner or gasoline. No, he isn’t getting in too deep, and while he understands and appreciates her concerns she must not forget he still holds his spiritual duty towards his people and is walking the path of prophecy.

Yes, the situation on the first tier is still too dangerous. Even as he speaks he sees: teeth-lipped worms and fleeting black shadow-figures, some sort of dinosaur with horrid spines, a skeleton with papery skin stretched between bones. They have recognized him as one of their own and are sussing him out. Analyzing him.

He isn’t surprised at all when Machi tells him that many of the patients suffer from a drained soul.

Someone else is, though.

“What the hell did you just say! Give me the phone!”

“Leorio wants to talk to you,” Machi sighs, and so Chrollo remembers the angry man in the car. "You're on speaker."

“I only said that the princes have been benefiting from combination nen. Obviously, their power comes from somewhere.”

“We couldn’t figure it out,” Leorio says slowly. “Shit, that makes sense. Why the hell didn't you say something sooner, Machi!”

"No one asked me?"

“Royalty rests on a throne of corpses,” Chrollo quotes. “Have you checked the political affiliations of your patients?”

He spares an idle thought as to what might have happened to Halkenburg’s believers. Fools, all of them, to trust in these monarchists. It’s time he took a break from these first-tier distractions. Five tiers below, his people are in need.

If the Association seeks terrorists, Chrollo’s already witnessed Morena’s soul. Surely he can find the reaches of her web. Point out her rogue civilians and let them take the fall (and, finally, give Illumi something to do). After that, find a secure place for his own and nestle his daughter safely in their midst far away from these ridiculous princes and their schemes.

Before he returns on the warpath to destroy them all. The lost souls of the Kakinese have cried out to him. This is his answer.

As for the situation here in room 1014, the Kurta does not take kindly to his responsibilities.

“Do you not find my sister beautiful?” Chrollo inquires, half-propped up on Shizuku in his sister’s bed. “She’s quite fond of you. The attraction is present.”

“That’s not the issue here! I’m not going to - you can’t expect me to -”

“Establish grounds for her exile, spread a rumor of her infidelity, and throw Woble’s parentage into question.” Perhaps he might be able to serve as scapegoat. Incest is considered a sin most horrible; Chrollo does not understand quite why. Considering the delusion of family, one would assume it natural for these outsiders to believe their perverse acts only strengthened the bond. Lot and his daughters performed acts most depraved. “You do realize I would never allow my sister to actually lie with a Kurta, yes? Although...” he frowns at the Kurta’s body and wonders what draws outsiders to lust after vessels. What does his sweet sister see when she looks at this creature? “If you make her happy, I suppose it’s allowed.”

His sister is an older outsider. Some excuses can be made for preserving certain sepolian delusions. It is no easy thing to give up ones past identity, but no spiritual journey can be made without struggle. She turned horribly red and excused herself when Chrollo brought up this plan, unable to look at Kurapika.

Even the Kurta is flushed. If the attraction is reciprocated, then what’s the issue? “I’ll do what’s necessary to protect the Queen and Prince Woble,” Kurapika grits. “As for the fourth prince -”

“Tserriednich can wait. He may yet be of use. Right now my people need me below decks. Once my family is secure -”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Kurapika snarls. “You’re on house arrest, idiot.”

Biscuit inhales.

“I’m a free resident of Meteor City. It’s impossible for me to be under arrest.”

Biscuit exhales.

“Give me a break,” Kurapika snorts. “Everyone knows trash belongs in the dumpster. The only reason you’re not in chains is -”

“What outsiders call bondage is our freedom. The soul persists no matter the subjugation.” As it was told and as Chrollo knows. “Seat yourself, demon.”

The Kurta does not react well to being called a demon. Acknowledged, Chrollo supposes. He himself threw _The Travels of Pati de Kaki_ in a violent rage when he first read it, but he doesn’t appreciate Kurapika reciting the same tired slurs these outsiders use. The spectrum twists. The guiding light, enhanced -

He’s surprised at how the soulcatcher manifests. His darling parasite coos in his arms when he reaches. Soul brimming, aura overwhelming, the sheer force sending the Kurta reeling. Climbing out of bed, the soulcatcher clings to the flesh of his flesh and stalks a circle around the wretch.

“I stand as your elder in this space, Kurta You will sit. You will listen. You will obey.”

“Excuse me? ”

“This one has offered you a chance to return the sins of your ancestors, wretch,” he continues. “Our bond is in flesh and in flesh you will rejoin us. Were it not for this one’s mercy you’d be shunned. We have opened our hands to you, Kurapika. But before you can meet their embrace, we will require you to examine yourself.”

The hands from his visions have manifested, fingers skittering across the walls, arms wrapping the Kurta tight in their embrace. While the outsiders seem alarmed at the grasping hands of the people, Woble reaches out her own chubby fingers to meet a shadow-black hand.

Let him show the Kurta, then. Remind the Kurta why they rage. Teach him that if he continues to refuse this last-minute chance he'll sink with the rest of these damn royalists.

As the wandering witnesses like to say…

The Kurta gasps. “What game are you playing at, Lucifer!”

“Very impressive, Mister Lucilfer,” Biscuit says slowly. “I see you’re coping well with your parasite.”

“Naturally.” Waste not, want not. Kurapika is staring in blank horror even as he recenters and finds himself again. “Is it true, Hunter? You hold me prisoner in this very room? Is my sister aware?”

“Yes,” Biscuit snaps. “Yes, you are indeed being held. You’re free to move about the first tier, given your involvement in the succession war, but your limits end there.”

The soulcatcher’s face is perfectly arranged.

Of course these fools believe they can restrict the movements of the free residents of Meteor City. Franklin’s five alone, the truth remains: there is no telling how many holy martyrs might have gathered here. Give him free access of the ship, and he can surely identify each one should these Hunters be willing to ask for it. He was rather busy in his search for Hisoka to bother with his brethren, fully aware they’d take his place for him should be slow down to count his chickens.

As the wandering witnesses like to say: when the foul machinations of this land reach their boiling point, when the capitalists drive themselves to their own collapse, Meteor City will rise. Let them abuse us as we will.

“I understand the circumstances,” the Boss of the Spider demurs. “Still, spreading the rumor that my sister has played harlot would be quite helpful for our situation, Kurta. Considering, as you know well, we share goal and purpose entirely.”

“Believe whatever you want,” Kurapika mutters, and leaves the room taking great care to slam it behind him. When Biscuit tries to speak Chrollo puts a finger to his lips.

Yes, the Kurta is punching a wall in frustration.

“Curious species, aren’t they? Do they truly care for nothing but themselves?”

“Behave yourself, Mister Lucilfer,” Biscuit says, and Chrollo sees her soul in her fist. Admires her restraint. “The only reason we’ve treated you well so far is because -”

“You have over 200,000 souls to protect on this ship. Believe me. I understand.” More than she ever knows. “I’m curious about you, Biscuit. You’re clearly older and more powerful than you look, yet you deliberately hide it. Why did you become a Hunter? What do you pursue?”

“I -” she blinks. “Gems, Mister Lucilfer,” she says carefully. “If it wasn’t for - you know - all the - Association business, I’m pretty much just a glorified petrologist. Some of us Treasure Hunters -” and she shuts up a glance.

She knows.

“What if,” Chrollo asks slowly, “I were to give you these terrorists? Would the terms of my arrest be re-considered then?”

Biscuit levels him with a look.

“There’s a woman on this ship. Morena. Works for Tserriednich. According to the reports of the lower tiers the Hei-ly have been causing havoc, unlike my simple brethren. Let me hold my own training, and I’ll mark them with the Sun and Moon for you.”

“Is everything over?” Oito asks brightly, peeking her head into her own bedroom. “Quwroro, it’s time for Woble’s bottle.”

Chrollo melts. He follows his sister into the kitchen, helps warm up Woble’s bottle, and delights in the liberation of unfiltered breastmilk. His child will grow up healthy and strong. Oito tries to feed her too quickly, Chrollo knows to feed her sparingly. Let his sepolian babe learn to want. Learn that if she cries out he will answer. Best to begin acclimating her to her future life in Meteor City.

“Just let her suck, dammit,” Kurapika snaps finally.

Chrollo, perched on the kitchen counter, stares down at him. “Would you like to hold her? Be quite careful. I know your people aren’t much for childrearing, but it’s never too late to learn,” and now the Kurta is falling back on himself, swearing as he tries to accommodate her. Woble catches onto his own discomfort and turns fussy, and the Kurta plays the clown to calm her down.

Too slow to react. His facial features are forced. Then again, every child struggles with the careful composure adulthood brings. It takes many years to become an elder. What stage of development is the Kurta in? How long has the bastard been corrupted? Though Chrollo knows damn well what has been severed may never be restored, the soulcatcher tilts his head.

The thing must be quite young. Though as far as Chrollo knows his society holds no standardized age of adulthood, he often wonders why sepolian culture gives such power to its youth. To think the mafia would place a child in charge… then again, he supposes that’s why they’re so easy to kill.

“I’m a professional, Lucifer,” Kurapika replies, twisting away when Chrollo reaches for his daughter. “You’re far from the first to use my age to question my competence.”

“Far from it. I led a reformation when I was eleven,” he tells the Kurta wryly. When he began his retaliation against the flesh collectors he used the very rituals of elder preparation. The guiding light and the light outstretched, drawn in lines as fine as Machi’s strings to razor-sharp wire -

_Slice._

Leave the parts of the flesh collectors out in the desert as warning.

“Somehow, the mafia didn’t find those parts worth selling. I was a fool.”

Kurapika eyes him uneasily, but finally allows an anxious Shimano to take Woble from his arms. “What are you trying to tell me? The Nostrade family - under my leadership, we’ve never taken part in that trade!”

Beautiful. So he is aware of his own complicity in the same trade that drove his people into hiding yet refuses to acknowledge it. How many eyes has this Kurta found already? How many Meteor City residents have passed between his palms? What goes on in the backrooms of his innocent casinos? Chrollo has stood before a wall of his own people before, but those lost shards are useless to him. Pickled in poison, unable to be consumed or tilled, they are nothing but fuel to a fire. Before he can inquire further Bill comes to him with a message: yet another Prince is calling.

I must admit, my gentle reader, I found these practices absolutely horrifying. Such savagery, such cannibalism! And yet, as I witnessed their revolting festivals I was struck by the spirit of camaraderie. To think even among the trash lies the barest specks of humanity is impossible for any civilized person to contemplate. Yet there my savage monks were, showering the forgotten babes with affection, sharing meals thoughtlessly, and all the while the fires raged and the trash heaped to the high heavens until I fainted into the arms of my poor fool of a guide. As much as the rational mind insists it cannot be, there it exists, and has always existed, and will forever more continue. All hail the Meteor. May I stand in its shadow forever.

**\- EXCERPT FROM THE TRAVELS OF PATI DE KAKI**

Zhang Lei’s conservatory is, by his own admission, a poor example of his zen gardens back home. Full-spectrum fluorescents hang over a low table covered in trees denied their true nature and size. Over his shoulder, beyond the false light, his nen beast shines like a sunburst.

“My brother Tserriednich takes a colonizer's view of your people,” Zhang Lei says, snipping the leaves of a bonsai elm. “He is ignorant of the true nature of our watchers in the shadows. Tubeppa finds you a simple savage. As for Benjamin and Camilla, they still suppose Meteor City to be a children’s story. They’ll be the first to destroy each other, mark my words.”

“Is that so,” he says blandly. Again this Prince requested Chrollo visit solo. Bonolenov and Shizuku are in the drawing room drinking matcha beneath the eyes of the relics of Zhang Lei’s humane hobby of trophy hunting. Chrollo is glad for this; Bonolenov hates seeing his sacred plants placed in overly manicured gardens.

“I’m well aware of your people and what they stand for, Mister Lucilfer.” Yellowed leaves fall in one cupped palm. “The Association tracks down terrorists while they walk past their watchers daily. Your evangelists stand on street corners preaching about meteors. I find myself wondering what possible incident might lead them to rise up and demand civilized society make the final choice.”

The entire branch is a lost cause. From scissors to pruning shears, Zhang Lei snaps it off. The sunburst stares at the hands of Chrollo's own parasite with flat eyes before spitting out a single coin into one palm.

“I cannot claim to know when the meteor may land, Zhang Lei,” Chrollo replies. “But on this ship? For a single incident of corrupt imperialists treading on their people? Don’t flatter yourself. In terms of crimes against my people, all nations are equally complicit.”

The coin, while emblazoned with the sigils of Kakin, is entirely blank. No assigned value, no obvious monetary significance. Not that Chrollo knows much of foreign currency.

Does this beast do the same for its chosen Prince? What value might be attached to them? Does Zhang Lei believe to distribute them equally?

“Believe me when I say I prioritize the safety of my people above anything else.” Zhang Lei sighs, lays down his pruning shears and shakes leaves to the floor for a maid to diligently sweep up. “Should I become King, you’ll have no quarrel with me. I would do whatever it took to see you and your family safely below decks with a first-class ticket to Meteor City. Out of sight and out of mind.”

“Where my kind belong,” Chrollo says slowly.

“Naturally, Mr. Lucilfer. Naturally.”

**The Tale of the Red-Eyed Demons**

A long, long, time ago, before the construction of our catacombs…

The roving warriors came in from the desert, exhausted from their flight. Like ourselves they suffered at the hands of the flesh collectors, those who would steal our shards from our holy collective.

Powerful they were, with strange souls of their one that shone in their blood-red eyes. We welcomed them into our midst, sought solidarity with them. Swore to bring the meteor down upon all those who tortured us.

But the warriors refused our embrace.

They did not join hands. They did not meet us in the shadow. They did not join the collective. Instead they called us by the names of our oppressors, slunk away in the middle of the night stealing our sacred water with them, committing the unforgivable severance. Though our wandering witnesses and martyrs searched, they disappeared into the folds of our history.

And yet: even today our wandering witnesses keep one ear open for our traitors. Even today our martyrs remember our lost retaliation in their mediations. We must be willing. We must be ready.

Tell me it again, children?

 **RESPONSE:** To make the sacrifice for the survival of us all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this is a short one but comments and feedback always welcome :3


End file.
